The Pub is not meant to be a place where students get smashed, officials are quick to explain. Instead, they want it to be a spot where students can get to know their professors in a casual setting, chat up administrators and informally study drinking in moderation.

In the Math Emporium, the computer is king, and instructors are reduced to roving guides. Lessons are self-paced, and help is delivered “on demand” in a vast, windowless lab that is open 24 hours a day because computers never tire. A student in need of human aid plants a red cup atop a monitor.

An unsettling answer emerged: arguably, not very much.

The report, “Beyond Need and Merit,” comes from the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. Ostensibly, it recommends that states eliminate the distinction between need-based aid and merit aid and instead award all grant aid by a simple formula that considers both.

The students were traveling Saturday morning near the town of Taupo, part of a two-van convoy en route to hike the famed Tongariro Crossing. University authorities identified the dead as Daniela Lekhno, Roch Jauberty and Austin Brashears. A fourth student, Margaret Theriault, was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition, officials said.

Beginning this month, high school students across the country will be making choices about the colleges they will attend for the next two or four years. Whether they are choosing from among elite private colleges and flagship public universities, or from a list of open-access state four-year and community colleges, how will they and their families make those decisions?

The University of Florida recently decided to drastically shrink its computer science department, a move that will save the university around $1.4 million. At the same time, the university’s athletics budget went up by around $2 million. Although there has been a strong reaction against this move in the media, there have been those who supported the UF decision, saying that it was an expression of the free market. For instance, an article in The Atlantic noted that UF Athletics, as a nonprofit entity, returns part of its profit to the university and also receives generous contributions from alumni and others. This line of reasoning implies that athletics should not be cut, as they contribute directly to the college’s bottom line. However the argument being made is seriously flawed. Let’s explore why.

On Friday afternoon, the fake president tweeted about undergoing surgery and then sent out a link to a column in the student newspaper that is headlined, “I am Fake Wallace Loh: And so can you!”

By John H. Jackson and Pedro Noguera

By Marion Brady

Exxon-Mobil is airing education-reform television ads. In the one I’ve seen most often, implicit and explicit messages are simple and clear: (a) We live in a dangerous, technologically complex world. (b) Our lives, liberties, and happiness hinge on our ability to cope with that world. (c) Coping requires mastery of math. (d) On standardized math tests, America ranks 25th in the world. (e) Be ashamed and afraid. (f) Get behind corporate education reform efforts.