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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 45m

Me, when there's a turn-and-talk at the session.

James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Here are the changes NCES want to make to the ACTS component in IPEDS. They're not particularly dramatic. They look like a tacit admission the the first data collection was not good at all. I'll have more to say on all this on Monday. Bon Weekend!

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

That link didn't work for me, so hope this one does. But also, where are the details??https://www.regulations.gov/document/ED-2026-SCC-3037-0001

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I really don't understand why the Trump Administration is focusing on the list JDV cited. I mean, Cal Tech enrolled 758 international students in 2022-23, almost all of them grad students, which is less than 4% of the number enrolled by NYU.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The more selective a college is, the more likely it's international students are to be grad students.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Almost all international grad students are at R1 universities.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The majority of international students are enrolled in graduate school, particularly if we look at elite universities.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Just five percent of U.S. higher education students are international, although in some states the percentage of students who are international is higher.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The United States is the world’s leader in research. The United States is also the top destination of international students. These two facts are not unrelated.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

What even is this man talking about?

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Important part of Anne Carson's greatness (in addition to her writing's intelligence, grace, and beauty) is her interest in playing with the form of the book.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

And here's the revolting email that was sent by Botstein (or Botstein's email??) at 12:45 am.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Name something you want less than an X credit card.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Here is a list of the National Science Foundation grants won since 2021 by this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Here's an easy first step: comply with CA law and stop using legacy preferences.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's wild that an editor at the Chron could ask this question for any other reason than to point out that Yglesias is completely wrong and has no idea what he's talking about.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The red box is every private college with an admit rate below 25%.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I had a great time talking about the impact of the SFFA decision with @juliejpark.bsky.social @angelbperez.bsky.social Jasmine Davis-Randolph and Dakota Pawlicki on the @luminafoundation.bsky.social podcast.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The fact that USN puts the military academies in the same category as Bowdoin and Bryn Mawr tells you pretty much all you need to know about how seriously to take the rankings.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

They made some improvement, from 17% of undergrads from the bottom 60% of income to 30% of undergrads from the bottom 60%. None of the Ivys have increased Pell share as much as Princeton.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I used to think elite universities could be shamed into getting rid of legacy, but as this USC professor noted, shame tolerance is built into the business model. Federal legislation may be the only way to get rid of this unethical & embarrassing ritual that America's elite class just can't quit.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In this week where a politician's racist reaction to Indian students at a UT game has gotten a lot of attention, it's worth noting that legacy preferences probably hurt South Asian students more than anyone.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Princeton's president has acknowledged that Princeton should not be enrolling more than 40% of its class from the richest 10% of households, but he's not ready to get rid of a practice that heavily favors the rich.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

For all their talk about eliminating barriers to diversity, not one Ivy Plus school has eliminated legacy admissions. Stanford decided it would rather give up millions in state financial aid dollars than give up legacy preferences.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Legacy admissions is the real compact that highly rejective colleges have with the Trump Administration. For all their talk of merit and transparency, no one in the White House cares about legacy preferences.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"Elite" institutions continue to provide legacy preferences even though they acknowledge that legacies already have tons of advantages and that it turns admissions officers into fundraisers.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

2) highly rejective colleges continue to cling to the practice of putting a thumb on the scale for the applicants that have already won the birth lottery.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

What's going on with legacy preferences in 2026? There's really 2 stories. 1) The vast majority of colleges have stopped considering legacy status in their admissions practices, but...

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Most of the debt people have is under $20,000. That's not to downplay that amount of money or the burden it imposes. It's to clarify that the crippling debt some people have may be relatively small, while six-figure debt can be entirely manageable if it's from, say, med school or dentistry school.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Almost half the people with education debt are under 35.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Let's not forget the federal component in the scandal that is Alpha Schools.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Weird that this airline went out of business.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I finally read C. Thi Nguyen @add-hawk.bsky.social's The Score. It's as brilliant on games as you've heard. I didn't expect how vital his ideas are for anyone who cares about metrics, standardization, grades, tests, & all the other ways we enrich & flatten our knowledge about the world with scores.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This might be a good day to revisit Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann on the problems with using "years of schooling" as a metric in education research. hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/defaul...

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

A request to reconsider using the "years of schooling" metric. hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/defaul...

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I suspect the administration knows they are unlikely to win in court and that the regulation will be dissolved by the next administration. They'll settle for the preemptive compliance they're suggesting here.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

What's being proposed, as per the press release, is based on a SCOTUS decision that addressed admissions decisions and nothing else. That could be a part of the legal challenge to the regs, but I suspect not the strongest part of the challenge. home.treasury.gov/news/press-r...

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

What's with the Dept of Education using AI slop to mark the 250th anniversary of our founding?

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

People on X are grabbing their pitchforks over some CNBC/Princeton Review rage bait about the most expensive colleges in the country. The article, of course, is about sticker prices.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This table of who needed special consideration to get into Notre Dame in 2020 is quite something. (source: www.courtlistener.com/docket/62017...)

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This is the former head of admissions at Notre Dame saying, basically, that not all ND students who are legacies or related to donors are dumb but that pretty much all dumb ND students are legacies or related to donors.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The next time someone tells you legacies are just as good as the rest of the class, show them ND's own assessment of how they drag down the class.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Notre Dame's internal risk analysis of legacy admissions gets points for honesty, but they determined the risk of being unethical wasn't enough to stop putting a thumb on the scale for the relatives of alumni.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

In 2020, the then dean of admissions pushed through some reforms to try to place a wall between fundraising and admissions. Even though he reassured the development office that the wall wouldn't be *too* high, that dean was gone a couple years later.

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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

At some universities, not all legacies are considered equally. In the past (maybe still?), Cornell's Alumni Affairs and Development office created a subgroup within the overall group of legacy applicants. You mainly got on the list by giving money or having high potential to give.

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