McDonald's has opened a university in Shanghai to train a new generation of Chinese in the science of encouraging people to eat shitty food. Hamburger U's dean hopes the new campus will be the "Harvard for our industry." [AP]

The Harvard-Yale game's a storied tradition for Ivy League grads who enjoy comparing degree sizes/names. For everyone else, it's an opportunity to watch America's Prestigious Ivy Grads try to act like normal football fans, which they can't. So: what happened?!

The Yale Daily News that came out on Friday (we know, we're late) is decorated like a retro teen mag for their interview with James Franco. Oh, and Hollywood's gayest actor is considering moving to New Haven for his PhD!

The New School has sent the student body a detailed account of yesterday's brouhaha, including allegations that some of the occupiers weren't students and that they looted the cafeteria cash register.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has strong opinions on what causes poverty: lack of education. For a Stanford dropout, that's remarkably self-reflective. We would add to Musk's list two other causes of poverty: funding a money-losing electric-car company and getting an expensive divorce.

A week after suspicion arose that Emma Watson is plotting a European jailbreak for four years of college in the States, the Harry Potter co-star was spotted touring Harvard on Wednesday. True to its celeb news mission, the Harvard Crimson today passed along all the specifics about young Hermione's Cambridge sojourn, right down to the architectural flourishes that generations of university officials had been preparing for her visit since 1874:

Good news for all of the nerds who've had wet dreams about Hermione since age twelve - Harry Potter actress Emma Watson is applying to college, and she's thinking about leaving the esteemed halls of Hogwarts and heading to the States to get her education! We're sure the rising seniors over at Sigma Alpha Epsilon will be taking bets on who will nail her first while eager potential dormmates list "magic" and "sorcery" as interests when filling out their roommate request forms. Watson, who apparently garnered straight A's in high school finishing exams (Ooh! Sounds fancy!), says she hopes to be a part of a liberal arts program in the U.S. But after recent reports that new student James Franco was being stalked by hordes of psycho freshman while studying at the Columbia University library, we've learned the campus grounds aren't the safest confines for the cream of Young Hollywood's crop.In fact, some schools are flat out rejecting stars for the unwanted distraction they bring to the classroom. Last spring, Brooke Hogan was denied admission at three colleges in Florida when she was told the nine-camera production team behind her VH1 reality show Brooke Knows Best would disrupt the academic livelihood of other students - which is unfortunate, as she clearly needs the education. At the University of Southern California, the fine institution from which I recently graduated, there were many "star" students. Freshman year, Lee Thompson Young, vaguely known for his starring role on Disney's long-lost series The Famous Jett Jackson, was constantly ridiculed for his penchant for wearing exclusively all-white ensembles around campus ... classy. When Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos was boning Paris, girls used to flock to his English classes in the hopes of impressing him with their knowledge of Kafka. And rumor had it that David Gallagher, who played that goody-two-shoes with a bowl cut Simon from 7th Heaven, was a huge stoner who shacked up with a stripper in a house off campus. Point being: Hermione - no matter what you do, you're probably screwed.

Remember the days when every college campus was not a giant mall? Extra credit: remember when the average college campus had nary an Abercrombie & Fitch? Today's Wall Street Journal's story on that ubiquitous flip-flop brand's "buzz"-generating bonanza at five lucky college campuses* just gave us rush of nostalgia for the olden days. Remember how mercifully impossible it used to be for the average communications major to procure a pair of Tory Burch flats without leaving the Green Zone representing the 500 yard radius of the Theta house? Because college campuses were the rare tracts of land in America where the demand for dumb consumer goods and belogoed status branded articles of clothing seemed totally out of whack with the supply? Yeah well, those days = over!Once upon a time retailers shied away from college campuses because they didn't know how to deal with the four months of the year business would be totally dead. Mercifully, sometime in the nineties many enterprising college presidents pinpointed "detestable materialism" and "abiding love for conspicuous consumption" as two of the primary traits in the psychological profiles of the average overprivileged young high school students they coveted or at the very least wanted to apply to their institutions for the sake of pushing down the acceptance rate, and they forked over some of their endowment zillions to offering kickbacks to companies like Urban Outfitters and Barnes & Noble. My old campus even has an American Apparel now! Still, some retail chains found the whole "summer" thing to be a problem. So for them, the nation's institutes of higher education worked out a deal: open a "pop-up" store! Kiehl's and Havaianas and Victoria's Secret Pink are all doing it. They open mini-stores or stands for a day or a month and then pick up and leave! For some reason, according to the Wall Street Journal this is causing controversy. "We don't want our faculty and students overrun with commercialization," says University of Florida school spokesman Steve Orlando. Oh Steve.

Remember Stephany Her RoyalHighness, that incoming Princeton freshman who wrote that batshit Nietzschian Facebook letter to the Class of 2012? No? Let's refresh: "We are the anti-Christs to save the world from the mercy of God, the self-pity that festers within the masses," was a key sentence. And: "Religion is the opiate of the masses, so drug them until they are nothing but slaves at your will." Hey, turns out Stephany — last name Xu — is a product of our nation's dying Catholic schools! Stephany — who plans to maybe major in child psychology to help abused and neglected children! — was salutatorian at John Paul II High School in Plano, Texas. (Motto: Seek To Serve.) That's her in uniform above! She even gave a slightly more Jesus-compliant version of her screed in her graduation speech:From a tipster:

The Yale Entrepreneurial Institute is a program whipped up by the school to connect student-founded startups with the local business environment. The program's director hopes YEI "leaves students and potential students with the impression that Yale is an incubator for student-run businesses, just like Stanford or MIT." This is the program's second summer. Last year, four of the six startups in the program left for literally greener pastures. Yale should be careful what it wishes for. At a school known for its tradition of naked parties, shouldn't authorities be glad the program wasn't around to keep the pants-shedding likes of Justin.tv cofounder and Yale alum Justin Kan on campus?

You know that school Will Smith opened up in Calabasas? The one people are saying is a big front to indoctrinate children into the ways of Scientology? Well, we here at Defamer hate to pass judgment without at least a tiny bit of research. That's why I spent a few minutes skimming the New Village Academy's website. Surprisingly, there were no classes called "Worshiping Overlord Xenu" or "Releasing Your Inner Engram." But they do really stress building robots. In fact, the Educational Philosophy section of the site mentions robots no less than 4 times!

Who says Rutgers is a second-rate school whose most noble moment came when its women's basketball team was slandered by Don Imus? Whoever they are, they will be doing some serious re-evaluation of their stereotypes when the school lands in the world-renowned Guinness Book of World Records. On April 10, Rutgers will forever become known as the site of the "world's largest gathering of people dressed as Ninja Turtles." And it's not too late for YOU to participate, and score some free pizza while you're at it! The full flier for this historic event [via Philadelphia Will Do], is below.

Central City, Iowa, is giving MacBooks to all students in 5th through 12th grades. Now, we're all for giving laptops to students — maybe some of them will read Valleywag — but let's be realistic. "The laptops will be strictly for school subjects, and will come equipped with filters and blockers." Yeah, right. It will be mere days before some enterprising student gets caught reading one of Melissa's informative posts on high-class escorts. Why not just let them get sex ed via YouPorn? That seems easier. (Photo by AP/Michael C. York)

N.Y.U. has more students studying abroad than any other U.S. college or university, says the Institute of International Education in a new study. Well, sure. Seems like a far more sensible option than the alternative.

According to a hilarious sheriff's report from Naples, FL, the newest designer drug for America's kidlings is called Jenkem. It is also probably a hoax. It's allegedly made by fermenting raw sewage. How would you create Jenkem? It's just like making Sun Tea!

We did not know Stanford had such a problem with poverty but apparently Natalie Portman did. Threadbare Stanford sweatshirts, playing Ultimate Frisbee with a plastic plate, reading Edward Said by dwindling candlelight? The horror! [NY Post]