When is a kickback not a kickback? If you’re running the study abroad program at Columbia, pretty much always. The International Herald Tribune reports that universities the world over — from Argentina to Chile to Morocco — have sponsored junkets, err, subsidized program investigations, for Columbia and others schools in order to garner exclusive regional study rights. These foreign universities are so helpful, IHT reports, that they provide “free and subsidized travel overseas for officials, back-office services to defray operating expenses, stipends to market the programs to students, unpaid membership on advisory councils and boards, and even cash bonuses and commissions on student-paid fees.” Who says America’s global reputation is hurting?

Of course, Columbia has a sterling reputation as far as kickbacks go, and Kathleen McDermott, Columbia’s director of global programs, insists there is nothing untoward here. The trips provide “real access,” she said, “in a way you wouldn’t necessarily have … if I were on my own.” And by “real access,” we’ll assume she means real Habanos cigars on real Cuban beaches, sipping drinks with real tiny umbrellas in them, while CU cashes in on each student who goes abroad.

Admittedly, however, Columbia does have the tough job of making sure that these foreign institutions are up to snuff. A few years ago, Columbia student Brendan Jones ignored warnings from the global programs office and went to Oxford University, the Brit equivalent of Phoenix University Online. Oxford was not on Columbia’s list of allowed schools; to avoid repeating his junior year, Jones was forced to transfer permanently to the third-bit alma mater of 47 Nobel prize winners and 25 British Prime Ministers.

Have any horror stories or, better yet, personal experience in getting your wheel greased? Anonymity still guaranteed at ivygate.guest@gmail.com –MICHAEL MORISY

Last week, IvyGate jumped onto the Hillary Rodham college sexcapades pile after a letter she wrote in 1967 said she “met a boy from Dartmouth and spent a Saturday night in Hanover.” Turns out this Green was Robert Reich, Dartmouth ‘68 and the first Secretary of Labor for Bill Clinton, with whom he became friends as a Rhodes Scholar.

Reich, now a professor at Berkeley, is also an avid Blogger, and over a series of months has been dropping information about his date with Rodham. Let the New York Times‘ Caucus blog summarize:

Mr. Reich recalled that because both he and Ms. Rodham were student class presidents, he proposed a “presidential summit” date. They went to see Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “Blowup.”

“She wanted a lot of butter on her popcorn,” Mr. Reich said on his blog. “A lot of butter. Significant? You be the judge.”

OK, I will: He totally hit it.

His description of the encounter sounds like thinly veiled code he learned from Bill Clinton at Oxford. Imagine Clinton calling Monica Lewinsky back in the day for a “presidential summit” where they start off with “Blowup” before he “butters her popcorn.”

The verdict stands: Dartmouth, you studs!

–JIM NEWELL