University of Michigan tries to free up dorm rooms for big freshman class
(The Detroit News, June 23, 2014)
U-M is asking up to 300 returning undergraduates to move out of dorms to off-campus apartments to free up rooms for an unexpectedly large incoming freshman class. The school received nearly 50,000 freshman applications — a record — for the upcoming semester. The number of new students who accepted Michigan’s offer of admission in the fall semester exceeded the University’s expectations, said Peter Logan, University Housing spokesman. More

University of Michigan builds fake city for driverless car testing
(Mashable, June 8, 2014)
It’s nice to see Detroit getting busy again. Engineers at U-M have started construction on a simulated city center that will be used to test partially automated and fully driverless cars. The patent-pending Mobility Transformation Facility will take up 32 acres on U-M’s north campus, and be administered by a partnership of auto industry leaders and University researchers. More

Teenage girls are damned if they sext, damned if they don’t
(Time, June 18, 2014)
If you’re asking an adolescent boy, a teenage girl is “insecure” or “slutty” if she sexts and “stuck up” or “a prude” if she doesn’t. A study published on Jun. 6 in the Journal of Children and Media, appropriately titled “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t … If You’re a Girl,” found that although both male and female adolescents send sexts, teenage girls’ behavior is labeled regardless of whether they sext or not. The discovery was made after U-M researchers Julia Lippman and Scott Campbell distributed open-ended questionnaires to 51 adolescents aged 12-18 inquiring about participants’ sexting practices and thoughts on their peers who engage in sexting. More

Cutting the poor out of welfare
(The New York Times, June 17, 2014)
Over the past three decades, Congress has conducted a major experiment in anti-poverty policy. Legislators have restructured benefits and tax breaks intended for the poor so that they penalize unmarried, unemployed parents — the modern-day version of the “undeserving poor.” At the same time, working parents, the aged, and the disabled are getting larger benefits. Legislative changes in three major programs have driven these shifts. More

Remember the problems with mortgage defaults? They’re coming back with student loans
(The New York Times, June 12, 2014)
Student loans, along with mortgages and car loans, have become one of the three largest sources of credit, exceeding credit-card debt. This growth in student debt appears to have caught regulators unprepared. Compared with mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards, student loans are loosely regulated, and that regulatory weakness is particularly threatening to consumers because they can’t discharge their debts through bankruptcy and escape lenders who are causing them harm. More

Why daughters are better than sons, at least financially
(Time, June 12, 2014)
If you’re raising a girl, congrats. A new survey finds that in adulthood, daughters are less likely to bleed parents dry — and more likely to provide free care. Ever wonder when your kid will move out of the house for good and stop treating you like an ATM? More

22 devastating effects of climate change
(Business Insider, June 11, 2014)
Major negative effects of climate change are here now and they’re only getting worse, as shown by recent reports from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) and the White House, among others. The greenhouse gas emissions that drive warming “now substantially exceed the highest concentrations recorded in ice cores during the past 800,000 years,” the IPCC said. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which primarily come from the burning of fossil fuels, have risen 40 percent since pre-industrial times. More

U-M, 3 other schools form technology consortium
(The Detroit News, June 11, 2014)
The University of Michigan is teaming up with three other research universities to form a technology consortium to improve how educational content is shared among universities and delivered to students. The initiative also is aimed at taking control of the digital landscape shaping higher education. The consortium, known as Unizin, will be a partnership between U-M, Colorado State University, Indiana University, and the University of Florida. More