In a tragic turn of events for college students nationwide, birth control costs on campuses are going through the roof. Last year's Deficit Reduction Act has recently been fingered as the culprit in the rising costs.

The $39 billion in cuts were leveled at things like subsidized student loans, Medicaid, candy, children's toys, etc; Gawker alerted us this morning to a Wall Street Journal article which dished the full details of its implications for subsidized contraceptives.

Anne Marie Chaker writes that "through an arcane set of circumstances" the act has disincentivized drug companies from subsidizing their product for school markets.

The contraceptive prices offered to schools are now included in a complex calculation that determines certain Medicaid-related rebates that drug makers must pay to states. In this calculation, deep discount prices would have the effect of increasing drug makers' payments.

Colleges and universities say the change is having a significant impact on their health centers and the students they serve. Prices have begun skyrocketing for many popular brands of birth control. Health centers are having to reconfigure their offerings and write new prescriptions. And college students are making some tough choices, such as switching to cheaper generic brands or forgoing their privacy in order to claim their pills on their parents' insurance.

The higher prices took effect earlier this year but savvy college health providers stocked up before the changes, forestalling the impending contraceptive cost crisis. Don't just feel bad for the "very fertile" college women who will now have to suffer higher prices or a lack of privacy to get their birth control, though. The schools that received those subsidized products were making a tidy profit, too, which has now evaporated as they turn to subsidize contraceptives for their students.

Free market solutions, anyone? I hope you're happy, Republicans.

--SAM JACKSON

The long-named Columbia University Chinese Student and Scholars Association: United for China's Peaceful Rising (CUCSSA) has taken the stance, as of a few weeks ago, that "Anyone who offends China will be executed no matter how far away they are!" and said so on their website for all to see. That's what 'peaceful rising' means in Mandarin, right? Someone translate for me.

Luckily for most of us, the Epoch Times tells us that 'anyone' just means Falun Gong practitioners. The Columbia University Falun Dafa Club is understandably upset. This was only the latest escalation in CUCSSA's extremist rhetoric in the months since the Falun Dafa Club hosted a panel discussion in April about China's spotty human rights record.

The April panel, titled "China's New Genocide-Organ Harvesting from Live Falun Gong Practitioners," caused an indignant CUCSSA to try to take disruptive action. They were not yet at the death-threat stage, instead:

The CUCSSA responded by sending out an email to its members the night before that referred to using "flags dyed red in blood to beat" the "high spirits" of Falun Gong. The email also repeated slanders of Falun Gong typically used in the Chinese regime's propaganda.

The Falun Dafa Club received a copy of the inflammatory e-mail and Columbia University police were on hand the next day when 20 to 30 CUCSSA members showed up carrying large red flags, which they were forced to leave outside the lecture hall.

During the panel discussion CUCSSA students held up small placards attacking Falun Gong using terms borrowed from the Chinese regime's anti-Falun Gong propaganda, flew paper airplanes in the direction of the speakers, and in other ways acted in a disruptive manner. Two students from the CUCSSA group were prevented from reentering the lecture hall because of their inappropriate behavior.

First question: Were the red flags actually dyed in blood? All of your questions answered after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

I'm not writing about Harry Potter just because it's a national obsession: there are some very clear Ivy ties. For example, the Daily Princetonian reported back in January that Daniel Radcliffe was going to be Princeton '11. Wait, that was the joke issue? Honestly, I have a very straightforward motivation in promoting Harry Potter--it fosters in children an interest in witchcraft and the occult, and with that in mind, it helps me in my Hell-borne quest to subvert Christian morality and destroy the fabric of American society. Duh.

No, the real connection comes from the way students all over have a tendency to associate the 'magic of Hogwarts' with their own schools.

Yale has a particular obsession: when not complaining about Hermione being too attractive, the Yale Daily News passes the time debating which residential colleges are most like Gryffindor and whether Larry Summers is Voldemort incarnate. On Facebook, the story is no different. Yale has spawned "Yale is Hogwarts, Harvard is Azkaban," and "I Chose Yale Because it is Like Hogwarts" --265 and 448 members at writing, respectively.

Harvard's response? "Harvard is Hogwarts, Yale is Azkaban"... 4 members. Back in 2001 the Crimson observed that quite a few Harvard students found HP "very harvardish," or that Hogwarts was "Harvard plus magic." "The childish nature of the Harry Potter series appears to be a strong pull," wrote G.M. Sheehan. The debate is since settled; Scholastic's first reader (Arthur Levine, Brown '84) in charge of Harry Potter noted at a Master's Tea that Yale was "the closest thing you can get to Hogwarts in the United States." At least Harry and the Potters are playing in Harvard Hogwarts Square on opening night.

But don't fight about which school is Hogwarts--don't you see? No one school is, they all are! It's magic.

Send tips, but not spoilers, to ivygate.guest@gmail.com. Fun campus Harry Potter stories are welcome!

--SAM JACKSON

The University of Pennsylvania appears helpless to stop a surge in assaults and robberies by several bands of tweens on campus in the last month. WPVI ABC local news tells us "the hunt is on" for a group of children as young as 9 years of age "terrorizing residents, on and around the University of Pennsylvania campus." The kids are "targeting Penn students and staff" and that there have been as many as ten incidents around the campus in the last few weeks.

They strike in groups of three to eight, according to a Penn security alert, and some may be up to 13 years old (gasp!). Luckily, the Philadelphia Daily News reports that patrols have been stepped up, including covert operations, while security cameras and footage are being monitored. Can someone explain what these "covert ops" might be? Are they sending grade schoolers to infiltrate these vicious gangs? Undercover officers dressed as students intended to lure them out of hiding?

Two boys have been arrested so far, but the remaining groups are still at large. Good to know the sharp team of police and University security officers can handle themselves against some tough West Philadelphia criminals.

In a related tots-on-trikes robbery story, two nights ago a pair of 14-16 year olds on bicycles robbed a Yale graduate student at gunpoint. On the bizarre summer crime meter, I give one point to Yale for David Smith's weapon stash and one to Penn for the munchkin gangs. With a good heat wave, Penn could easily pull ahead, but where are the other ivies?

If you have more information about these dangerous criminals, or any tips in general, send them in to ivygate.guest@gmail.com

 --SAM JACKSON

The Yale Daily News reports that David Light '09 was arrested Monday by Yale University Police and suspended after police followed up on a witness report that last Friday Light had fired a handgun into the ceiling of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity where he was living. Shooting up the ceiling of you fraternity is bad; shooting up the ceiling with the least powerful weapon in your arsenal of shotguns and assault rifles is worse.

When police arrived on the third floor of the fraternity they found a treasure trove of firepower including, but not limited to: an AR-15 assault rifle, a .50-caliber rifle, a Russian M-91 infantry rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, various pistols, and ammunition. In total, two assault rifles and nine other guns. Light reportedly did not have permits for any of the weapons.  After searching the fraternity during the raid police also said they found 'bomb-making materials,' an assortment of chemicals including a large bottle of mercury. Some students speculated that this might be explained by his background in the sciences.

 Described as an excellent student by his peers and as 'a perfectly normal person' by an unnamed member of his local gun range, Light was well known as a gun enthusiast and collector. His facebook profile (gone since this afternoon) describes an interest in 'pyrotechnics, blacksmithing, weaponry, surfing, firearms' and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Generic taste in music isn't the end of this story, though: more after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

A week ago Jacob Savage ran a piece about how Antonio Villaraigosa Jr., the son of the mayor of Los Angeles, decided to share some stories on Facebook of his adventures partying and drinking with other members of the Princeton class of 2011. While a fun story, I wouldn't be writing about it again if questions about its credibility hadn't been raised by fraudsters elsewhere online.

Other blogs picked up the story, including Mayor Sam's Sister City, a blog authored by Michael Higby, LA resident. All was well until late Tuesday night.

That's when someone sinister fraudulently presented himself to Mayor Sam and other blogs as Jacob Savage and claimed that the story was "a light-hearted jest," fabricated. The worst affront? This impostor described IvyGate as an 'Ivy league version of the Onion, with sometimes real news to confuse.' As our readers know, the IvyGate and the Onion are both characterized by hard-hitting fact-based journalism.

Now, the timeline: Higby proceeded to 'correct' his posts on Thursday with this new information without first verifying the identity of his 'Jacob Savage' contact. He then accused IvyGate, a "wannabe Phil Hendrie of blogs," of having "clowned the old, dead Republican mayor." We here at IvyGate felt it was important to correct these untruths and set the record straight. We have had limited success in contacting Higby and less success in getting him to retract his Thursdsay item badmouthing IvyGate. Nick first e-mailed him on Friday; there have been many more since, and for all these efforts, we've gotten but one in return before he disappeared again.

Rather than let his post fester, I am writing this now to inform all interested parties that the story as originally run remains true. Again, it's not our goal to single out Villaigarosa any more than we already have, but we had to clear our good name on this. IvyGate is and will continue to be an accurate and well-reported source.

UPDATE 7/17: Describing it as an 'Ivy League Blogging Lesson,' Mayor Sam has admitted his mistake.

--SAM JACKSON

I'm Beth Milton, Columbia '06. Impression of my undergraduate years? Let's just say I currently live in Copenhagen, a good 4,000 miles away from Morningside Heights. Not that I mind writing about the place, having helped launch The Bwog back in 2006, when the biggest thing we had to report on were some mysterious cracker packets. Oh, how the times have changed. When I'm not working on, thinking about, or dreaming of IvyGate, I'm also an Associate Editor for The Morning News, where I whip up some delicious afternoon headlines.

Want to win my undying affection? Try sending Sam and me rumors, tips, links, videos, musings, compliment, and complaints at ivygate.guest@gmail.com. It works every time.

And I'm Sam Jackson, Yale '11, no relation to Mace Windu and son of an actually black Michael. Some of you may already be familiar with my writing, as IvyGate sends a couple hundred visits to my blog about college admissions each month, where you stay for an average of 11 seconds longer than the usual visitor (thanks guys!). Basically, I'm here writing to repay my free traffic voodoo blood debt. I'm spending the summer working around the Boston area to pay down those tuition bills; nothing too glamorous. IvyGate's '40 grand' tagline is sadly out of date.

I may not be as jaded as the other editors but all the same I'll do my best to collect, pervert, and distort Ivy-related news just the way you like it. The inbox has some gems, but I'm confident you fine readers are withholding some great summer stories.  My undying affection isn't won as easily as Beth's, but don't let that stop you--send in your tips, praise, rumors, rants and career-ruining revelations today! Sharing is caring, after all.