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James S. Murphy

@jamessmurphy.bsky.social
1.2K followers 199 following 1.6K posts

Sometimes I write slow, sometimes I write quick. Mostly about college stuff. Weak on crime. Email: jstephenmurphy@gmail.com Website: www.jamessmurphy.com

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Reposted by James S. Murphy
Curtis Dozier @curtisdozier.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
As @letsgomathias.bsky.social notes, Rufo "often gets treated as a 'respectable' conservative." (see his constant platforming in NYT and elsewhere). Part of that respect comes from him going around promoting "Classical" Education. Stop falling for it
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 8h
Hmmm, not all those links take you to the filtered results. Ge tin there and play with the filters! Also, College Scorecard, let people download a CSV file of their filtered lists!
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 8h
There are 64 4-year colleges and universities in the US that admit more than half their applicants, graduate more than three-quarters of their students, and cost under $25k per year. collegescorecard.ed.gov/search?state...
collegescorecard.ed.gov
Search Colleges | College Scorecard
Search colleges nationwide. Search for schools based on degree type, cost, school type, test scores, size, mission, afflication, and more.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 8h
There are 152 4-year colleges and universities in the US that admit more than half their applicants and graduate more than three-quarters of their students. collegescorecard.ed.gov/search?state...
collegescorecard.ed.gov
Search Colleges | College Scorecard
Search colleges nationwide. Search for schools based on degree type, cost, school type, test scores, size, mission, afflication, and more.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 8h
According to College Scorecard there are 326 colleges and universities in the US that admit more than half their applicants and graduate more than three-quarters of their students. collegescorecard.ed.gov/search?state...
collegescorecard.ed.gov
Search Colleges | College Scorecard
Search colleges nationwide. Search for schools based on degree type, cost, school type, test scores, size, mission, afflication, and more.
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Joshua Goodman @joshua-goodman.com · 9h
Accelerating prepared students in middle school math has positive effects in high school and college, including closing gender gaps in core STEM majors (sci/math/engineering). Put differently, failure to provide acceleration exacerbates such gaps and generates lots of lost intellectual potential.
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Jessica Blake @jessicablake.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
In 2022, Congress gave the Dept. of Ed $1M and directed it to launch a nationwide survey on college students’ experience with sexual violence. Four years later, there is still no federal data—and some say it’s hindering university leaders. www.insidehighered.com/news/student...
insidehighered.com
Why Federal Data on Campus Sexual Assault Is Still Missing
The Cornell allegations have reignited discussion about campus sexual assault, and advocates say a nationwide climate survey would help address the persistent issue.
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Akil Bello @akilbello.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
maybe we should have the Dartmouth president take the SAT so she can show her merit www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
theatlantic.com
Don’t Write With AI, Say People Who Write With AI
Your “cheating” is their “assistive tool.”
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 21h
Film Forum in NYC shows it every so often. The table lamp just pops off the screen!
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 21h
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 21h
It's kind of bonkers. Utterly unnecessary but also amazing.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 21h
What is the movie that came out before you were born that you’ve watched the most times?
static.klipy.com
humphrey bogart crazy suspicious in a lonely place
Alt: humphrey bogart crazy suspicious in a lonely place
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 21h
But have you seen it in the original 3-D?????
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The Trump Administration killing some of what actually makes America great.
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Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...
The graph shows the cumulative number of awards made by month across this fiscal year, as compared to the last 6 fiscal years. The line for this year is total flat until June, but then finally gets up to 91 by October. In prior years the increase starts building earlier and ends on average in the 700-800 range (with variability, last year was only between 400-500).
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Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) @restatjournal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
When minimum wage goes up, 2-year college enrollment goes down. Little change in degree receipt though. In the September issue, by Diane Schanzenbach, Julia Turner, and Sarah Turner. zurl.co/Qic3g
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Jen Jennings @jenjennings.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
ProPublica Academy pencils for sale.
rayguncustom.com
*PRE-SALE* ProPublica Academy Pencils - Ships Late-October
*PRE-SALE* - shipping will begin in late-OctoberThis year, a team of ProPublica reporters has been documenting how the American education landscape is shifting dramatically as states use public money to help fund private schools. With few regulations, hundreds of new private and microschools have proliferated. All of t
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Let me know when the Varsity jackets are up @propublica.org!
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is a VERY GOOD graphic.
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Mike Finger @mikefinger.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Just asked Victor Wembanyama if he’d ever consider promoting a sports betting company. “Absolutely not. I will never do that. Honestly, I think it's very sad to see some players promote it. .. Everybody does whatever they want, but without me.”
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Ryan Quinn @ryanequinn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Everybody has a problem in the @chronicle.com opinion section
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Jen Jennings @jenjennings.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"This time, me tell A.I.: “Write about cookies passionately!” 'Some people only eat cookies on the weekends. I eat cookies all day long. Because the cookie grind never stops. Agree?' Me horrified. Me have unique voice. And now me sound like not me. Now me sound like Matt on LinkedIn."
newyorker.com
Cookie Monster Tries to Meet His A.I. Mandate
Me confused. Me know cookie inside and out! Now me has to use A.I. for cookie work?
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Liam Knox @liamknox.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Millions of student loan bills ballooned this year, sometimes doubling or tripling, after a Republican overhaul of repayment plans. Ahead of pivotal midterms focused on rising costs, some voters say student debt is an unsung affordability issue. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
bloomberg.com
Soaring Student Loan Bills Add to Voters’ Affordability Squeeze
More than 9 million Americans are at least one year behind on their payments.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
How are they defining a year? Calendar or academic? "Most people finish in 3.7 years" only makes sense if they're using calendar years, which is an odd choice leading to claims that sound wrong on their face.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
static.klipy.com
Betty White's Enthusiastic 'Yes!'
ALT: Betty White's Enthusiastic 'Yes!'
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I'm not surprised Matt Y hasn't. That's super on brand. But for a senior editor of the leading higher education periodical to be unaware that the field of higher education studies (departments, journals, subspecialists in econ and soc, etc.) exists is appalling.
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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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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 30/09/2026
This is priceless. Check out how local news is reporting on Sen Eric Schmidt’s clown-show grilling of Jack Smith. They found Jack Smith at the game… “Top corner, section 109, row 1. In fact, that seat doesn’t even exist in Atlanta.”
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W. Carson Byrd @wcbyrdphd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Nice overview of research by the Urban Institute & AIR about the burdens of ACTS reporting for institutions. ‘Ultimately, many institutions surveyed said they were concerned about how the ACTS data would be used—& whether their difficulties compiling it would lead to erroneous conclusions.’
insidehighered.com
Institutions Outline Challenges Collecting ACTS Data
About two-thirds of institutions needed at least the 200 hours that the Education Department anticipated they would require to compile ACTS data. Difficulty remedying errors and unclear definitions ma...
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Paul Bruno @paul-bruno.com · 29/09/2026
"Unless [Federal Scholarship Tax Credit] funds are targeted towards low-income areas outside the communities where the money is being donated, we expect the FSTC to become a regressive funding source, even where those funds go to public school students." www.brookings.edu/articles/who...
brookings.edu
Who is likely to benefit from the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit? | Brookings
Jon Valant and co-authors assess who will benefit from the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit—and why policymakers should be worried.
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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"It’s the kind of movie about evil billionaires that evil billionaires would enjoy, which makes it the worst kind of movie about evil billionaires." @williambibbiani.bsky.social is one of the greats
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Merle Eisenberg @merleeisenberg.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
AI teaching for today: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/o.... The author's approach makes sense: students write an essay followed by a 45 minute oral discussion. But he teaches small seminars at Williams College, whereas most professors teach 30-200+ lectures. The solution is a structural non-starter.
nytimes.com
Opinion | I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think. (Gift Article)
If I do not treat writing as essential for achieving thought, it is not clear why I should force my students to.
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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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Phil Klinkner @pklinkne.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Great research by @tesler.bsky.social on the GOP man crush on testosterone. I really loved this chart.
goodauthority.substack.com
Republicans’ fascination with testosterone in three charts
Why depictions of testosterone as a measure of manhood resonate with Republicans.
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Eric Kelderman @erickelderman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One big question I have about this entire endeavor is: Was this report itself an act of advocacy, given the way it was compiled and the people chosen to do the writing? Did the authors use scholarly methods to address the issues?
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Sarah Cohodes @cohodes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I love when @douglasharris9.bsky.social gets cooking on vouchers. I would say "vouchers are a special-interest carve-out for rich people."
Private school vouchers 
Make all or nearly all families eligible for taxpayer money to pay for private school or home-schooling. For example, $9,000 per student to pay for private school.
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EXPERTS SAID
Most experts described minimal academic benefits for the cost, including because many families who use vouchers are already enrolled in private school. A minority of experts were supportive, citing evidence that competition improves schools writ large.
"The main certain effect will be to substantially reduce costs for wealthy families."
Douglas Harris, Tulane University
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Chronicle of Higher Education @chronicle.com · 28/09/2026
Dartmouth is conducting a review of Provost Santiago Schnell after he admitted to using AI to write academic articles and newspaper opinion pieces. chroni.cl/4rCxBl8
chronicle.com
Dartmouth Opens Review of Provost Over AI Use in Scholarly and Public Writing
The college is conducting a “rigorous, objective review” of Santiago Schnell after he admitted to using artificial intelligence to write academic articles and newspaper opinion pieces.
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Merle Eisenberg @merleeisenberg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Budget fun fact #2. After removing medical schools and hospitals (more on this later), the largest sources of research funding for the Top 50 universities are: HHS (the NIH) at 31.5%, DoD (Department of Defense) at 25.5%, and the NSF (National Science Foundation) at 16.1%.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Policymakers at speech time: We need more college students going into high-paying STEM programs. Maybe wipe out some other stuff? Policymakers at budget time: We definitely can't provide more money for high-cost STEM programs. Maybe wipe out some other stuff?
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I love this time of year when the leaves change and you can almost smell the end of baseball.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Link here public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
public.tableau.com
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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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Dana Stevens @thehighsign.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
By far the closest Zuck has ever stood in proximity to something called “charm”:
bloomberg.com
Meta Debuts Dedicated ‘Charm’ Device for Using Muse AI
Meta Platforms Inc. unveiled a palm-sized, dedicated gadget for using Muse, the company’s popular new artificial intelligence assistant, pushing deeper into the AI devices market with a surprise annou...
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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
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James S. Murphy @jamessmurphy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Full show here: www.luminafoundation.org/news-and-vie...
luminafoundation.org
Three years after the end of race-conscious admissions
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in SFFA v. Harvard that race-conscious admissions policies violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
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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 · 24/09/2026
The loss of international students is probably the single biggest factor in who gets admitted where this year. It's never a bad year to be full-pay students. This year is likely to be better than ever.
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David H Feldman @dhfeldman.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I just noticed that I was cited in the Yale Report. The person who wrote this paragraph clearly did not understand what Bob and I were trying to express about the reasons why college price (and cost) have risen over long stretches of time. This is a wonderful example of a defensive citation.
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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 24/09/2026
George Washington University is reporting a 6.7 percent drop in enrollment this fall, primarily driven by international graduate students.
gwhatchet.com
Granberg warns GW will face continued financial challenges as enrollment slides nearly 7 percent
University President Ellen Granberg said during the meeting the anticipated decline of nearly 1,000 students this year is concentrated in the international graduate student market after visa restricti...
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Lee Gardner @leegee.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
John Coltrane was born 100 years ago today. We should all get off work and schools should close.
An image of a young John Coltrane in the studio with his tenor, later used on the cover of Blue Trane
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