Daily Higher Education News: 14 February 2012

The TopUniversities.com guide to the latest higher education news from around the world, on 13 February 2013.

High school student applies to Stanford with iPhone app

When you’re applying to a university like Stanford, it’s fair to say that you’ll need to stand out from the crowd. Well, a high school student named Alex Greene, applying for the university’s prestigious computer science program, has come up with a pretty special way of making his application unique: developing an iPhone app about himself! The app details his interests, which include – you may not be surprised to hear – developing iPhone apps, and also contains a short segment on why he’d be a good fit for Stanford. Pretty clever stuff, we think! The Huffington Post carries the story, or you can see a video of the app in action below…

Canvas bag typo costs ‘univeristy’

Universities always impress to students the importance of proofreading work before submitting it, but in the case of Missouri State University, it’s the university itself that would do well to heed this advice. The insitution was left red faced after 8,500 canvas bags on which the university logo was printed – intended to be handed out free at the campus bookstore – contained a misspelling of the word ‘university’, reports Yahoo News.  The mistake was a costly one, with the bags costing nearly US$4 a piece to make, meaning that the total spent on the bags with the error stands at close to US$34,000 dollars! Around 2,500 of the bags were destroyed, but the university eventually decided to hand out the bags anyway – fitting, as the whole point of the canvas bags was to eliminate the wastage caused by using plastic ones!

Student arrested for throwing a snowball at policeman

Combine students and snow, and you’re only going to get one thing…a snowball fight! But a mass ‘snowbrawl’ organized by Boston University students turned sour when a student was arrested after throwing a snowball at a campus policeman. The officer was duly pelted with snowballs from other participants, who called for the student’s release until he was taken away after allegedly being held facedown in the snow for 10 minutes. The student will be changed for disorderly conduct, assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, reports Daily News America.

Nearly 50 members of US Congress have student loan debt

A Center for Responsive Politics study has found that 46 members of Congress still hadn’t fully paid off their government student loans as of 2011 (the most recent figures available). The total amount owed between them could stand anywhere from US$1.8 million to US$4.3 million, as they are allowed to report their debts in approximate figures. The findings are somewhat surprising, reports The Huffington Post, as many members of the US legislative body are extremely wealthy. Additionally, the Republican Party, to which 24 of the congressmen and women belong, has called for an end to state loans; a bit cheeky, perhaps?

UK prime minister urges Indian students to study in the UK

David Cameron, prime minister of the UK, has urged Indian students to come and study in the UK after a significant drop in the number of students from India studying in the UK was recently reported. It is thought that various policies, including the tightening of visa regulations, inclusion of international students in immigration targets (the UK government wants fewer people entering the country) and a minimum salary requirement of £20,000 (around US$31,000) for international students who wish to stay in the country to work, have contributed to this drop. Cameron reassured students, reports the BBC, that if you are suitably qualified and have proof of your English language ability, there was no impediment to your coming to the UK to study. An all-party parliamentary group has been meeting this week to discuss the importance of attracting Indian students to the UK, arguing that the financial and intellectual gains made by the UK far outweighed any cost.