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For American teenagers, it really is harder to get into Harvard — or Yale, Stanford, Brown, Boston College or many other elite colleges — than it was when today’s 40-year-olds or 50-year-olds were applying. The number of spots filled by American students at Harvard, after adjusting for the size of the teenage population nationwide, has dropped 27 percent since 1994.

The share for any individual college is minuscule, of course. In 2012, about 33 out of every 100,000 American 18- to 21-year-olds were attending Harvard, down from 45 per 100,000 in 1994. These changes in the share tell you how much harder, or easier, admission has become for American teenagers on average. Between 1984 and 1994, it became easier at many colleges. The college-age population in this country fell during that time to 14.1 million in 1994 from 16.5 million in 1984, and the number of foreign students was relatively stable.

For students from the Northeast applying to elite colleges in the region, college admissions have probably become even more difficult in recent decades than these statistics suggest. Not only have colleges globalized, they have also become less regional, admitting more students from states like North Carolina, Texas and Washington.

Of course, some people want a formal education. I do not think everyone should leave college, but I challenge my peers to consider the opportunity cost of going to class. If you want to be a doctor, going to medical school is a wise choice. I do not recommend keeping cadavers in your garage. On the other hand, what else could you do during your next 50-minute class? How many e-mails could you answer? How many lines of code could you write?

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patchwork collection of online courses that's difficult for students to navigate.

they can improve their online-education efforts to help students find streamlined, affordable pathways to a degree.

disruption that technology has inflicted on the retail sector over the past decade is often used to illustrate what is about to happen in higher education.

institutions rarely introduce the sometimes radical changes they need to make, because one group of constituents believes the sky will fall tomorrow anyway, while others refuse to acknowledge that this time is different.

question is whether institutions will quicken their pace of change to lower their costs and better serve the changing educational needs of students and the global economy.

1. How Listening and Sharing Works

In school, getting people to share can be difficult. Learners may be diffident, or they may not have good strategies for sharing. Children often do not know how to offer constructive criticism or build on an idea. It can be helpful to give templates for sharing, such as two likes and a wish, where the “wish” is a constructive criticism or a building idea.

But more often than not, it is because one or more of five ingredients is missing: joint attention, listening, sharing, coordinating, and perspective taking.

magine a busy commuting student preparing both emotionally and intellectually for class by listening to a podcast on the drive to school, then reinforcing the day’s learning by listening to another podcast, or perhaps the same podcast, on the drive back home.

native expressiveness,

s there a noncommercial alternative to Podshow, Odeo, or other such services? Yes: “Ourmedia: The Global Home for Grassroots Media” (http://www.ourmedia.org/).

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.