The Common Application, an online college application system used by Yale University, the University of Virginia, and more than 400 other schools, is limiting the space available for applicants' personal essays to 500 words. We are all bloggers now.

A majority of unemployed Americans say they're confident that they'll find a job in the next year—a better job, at that. Meanwhile, college grads as a group are despondent over their own economic prospects. Now: considering the state of college in this country, we hesitate to make too much out of a college education. But when all the people who may have actually taken an economics class are the most pessimistic, we'd gently suggest that that's a bad sign. Perhaps the unemployed should tone down that optimism just a bit.

First, the bad news: Tuition at America's public colleges has increased by 8.3 percent over the past year. Now the good news: Your college degree is still worth every penny. In your dreams, I mean! In real life your degree is worth exactly one penny.

Elite college newspaper The Harvard Crimson has noticed a trend: Sometimes during class, people play with Facebook instead of pay attention.

As the dying middle class sees its children swallowed by the student debt bubble as they desperately take out loans to afford college degrees from their likely substandard schools, it's worth remembering the fact that the vast majority of college students in this country are part-timers who will never graduate. You'll never guess how much money we're wasting on remedial English classes! From the LA Times:

Reporting live from the wavering edge of the Student Loan Bubble: congratulations, collectively impoverished college students and recent graduates losing hope week by week! You've managed to achieve what many pointy-headed "Economics" professors might have called "inadvisable" or even "insane:" the highest student loan debt levels ever recorded. Huzzah!

The Smartening up of American continues. Having already smartened up and stopped applying to law schools, it appears that more Americans are now smartening up not applying to business school, either. Just how smart can America get?

For people whose job it is to turn unsuspecting suckers into corporate-advertising zombies, there's no better sight than a bunch of fresh-faced 18 year-olds moving boxes into a dorm room, ready to take on the world. Yeah, take on the world's debt. Don't forget your college-branded credit card and whatnot, suckers young adults!

Earlier this week, we told you about the case of Phillip Garber (seen in the video above), the precocious 16 year-old college student whose professor asked him not to speak in class because of his stuttering problem. Wholly predictable outrage ensued! Now, the professor is defending herself. Let's listen!

Community college student Marc Bechtol says he was pulled out of class and then banned from campus all because he disparaged his school's stupid branded debit cards on his Facebook. Marc Bechtol deserves a failing grade in Campus Brand Ambassadorship 101, otherwise known as An Introduction to Selling Out.

Florida's comically unpopular governor, Rick Scott, has decided to pick another new, arbitrary fight: This time with anthropology majors! And psychology majors, and really all liberal arts/social science majors, whom he believes his state university system subsidizes for no good reason. Have any of these invalids ever gotten a job, in Florida? There is no reason to humor them any longer.

Today there is yet another in an astonishing series of revelations from the Associated Press on the extent of the NYPD's illegal surveillance of Muslims: The city is sending undercover cops into local colleges to spy on Muslim students. Why? Because they're Muslims!

Today people across North America are celebrating College Radio Day—a brand-new holiday founded by two enthusiasts of college radio's typically "unique and fearless programming." On college radio, DJs can play Birthday Party songs before bluegrass songs and after Miles Davis songs, but also play Ke$ha songs if they want. On college radio, DJs can go "um" and "uhhhh" and it's okay, nobody fires them.

Sometimes, the very most basic facts of a story are all that's necessary to see the colossal outpouring of public rage that is sure to follow. As in this case! College professors: do not order a student in your class who stutters not to speak in class, ever.

America's finest colleges and America's finest corporations aren't all that different: they're both sitting on huge piles of cash, complaining about the economy, and soaking you, the consumer, for all you're worth. Simultaneously!

Today we heard the news that concealed firearms are the hot new accessory on college campuses. Sounds like a terrible idea, right? So how to stop this new law? One commenter had a suggestion.

What's new "on campus" these days? Guns! Guns, guns, guns. The college experience is no longer considered complete without a firearm to accompany you all over campus. Don't be a victim—of enemies of the Second Amendment!

Earlier this week, the University of New Hampshire announced that it would be banning the sale of energy drinks on campus, in order to "keep its students safe." From energy, presumably. Shortest-lived dumb college banning ever!

Seton Hall in New Jersey is a pretty okay school, if you judge schools based on the historical performance of their basketball teams (as I do). And now, Seton Hall has a special bonus deal: smart person discount!

Today, College Republicans at U.C. Berkeley undertook a hilarious satire, of, like, life, by holding a bake sale and charging different prices for different racial groups. Makes you laugh, doesn't it? But more importantly... it makes you think.