Cisco Systems to buy Meraki for $1.2 billion

Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s largest maker of computer networking gear, said Sunday it is buying Meraki for $1.2 billion to expand its ability to let customers compute in the cloud, the Associated Press reports. Cloud computing refers to the increasingly popular practice of storing software applications in remote data centers that are accessed over the Internet instead of installing programs on individual machines. Meraki Inc. is based in San Francisco and also has offices in New York, London and Mexico. The privately held company was founded in 2006 by members of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science. Meraki technology offers customers Wi-Fi, switching, security and mobile device management centrally managed from the cloud. Meraki will form Cisco’s new Cloud Networking group, led by Meraki CEO Sanjit Biswas. The company said on its website it had originally planned to remain independent and go public, but joining Cisco will help it achieve its goal of hitting $1 billion in revenue a year…

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U.S. colleges look to foreign students

Want to see how quickly the look and business model of American public universities are changing? Visit a place like Indiana University, says the Associated Press. Five years ago, there were 87 undergraduates from China on its idyllic, All-American campus in Bloomington. This year: 2,224. New figures out Monday show international enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities grew nearly 6 percent last year, driven by a 23-percent increase from China, even as total enrollment was leveling out. But perhaps more revealing is where much of the growth is concentrated: big, public land-grant colleges, notably in the Midwest. The numbers offer a snapshot of the transformation of America’s famous heartland public universities in an era of diminished state support. Of the 25 campuses with the most international students, a dozen have increased international enrollment more than 40 percent in just five years, according to data collected by the Institute of International Education…

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4 wounded in shooting on USC campus

Authorities say four people have been shot and wounded during a Halloween party on the University of Southern California campus, the Associated Press reports. Capt. David Carlisle of the USC Department of Public Safety says two people were detained following the shooting shortly before midnight Wednesday. Los Angeles police say the four victims were rushed to hospitals after the shooting at Tutor Campus Center. There was no immediate word on their conditions. According to KNBC, Assistant Chief John Thomas of the USC Department of Public Safety says a dispute between 2 non-students led to the shooting…

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Colleges postpone application deadlines

Superstorm Sandy is buying some high school seniors a few more days to finish their early-round college applications, with a number of selective colleges extending deadlines that were set to fall later this week, the Associated Press reports. Most students applying to college face deadlines in January or on a rolling cycle throughout the year, but many selective schools have “early decision,” ”early action,” or “priority” rounds whose Nov. 1 deadlines for applications and letters of recommendation fall on Thursday this year. With the storm threatening widespread power outages and other disruptions along the East Coast, the National Association for College Admission Counseling called on colleges to extend deadlines if appropriate, and a number of schools were announcing via blog post, e-mail, or Twitter their plans to do so…

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U.S. college students make film about their experience living in Guatemala on $1 a day

For many American travelers, Guatemala is an inexpensive, exotic destination for visiting Mayan ruins or studying Spanish in a language immersion program. But for a couple of U.S. college students, the country was the setting for a social experiment, the Associated Press reports. They spent a summer living there on the same daily budget that sustains over a billion people around the world: $1 a day. Then they made a film about it, “Living on One.” The film shows just how hard it is to buy enough food on so little money — never mind paying bills and coping with emergencies — but it has another theme that’s not quite as sexy as sheer survival. “Living on One” also tries to illustrate how people living in extreme poverty manage their money, and how microcredit — small loans for local entrepreneurs who can’t get traditional bank loans — can make a difference…

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4 college savings plans get top Morningstar honors

College savings plans offered through the states of Alaska, Maryland, Nevada and Utah earned top marks from Morningstar Inc. in the company’s annual update to ratings of so-called 529 plans, the Associated Press reports. Another four plans received second-rung silver-medal ratings from Morningstar, which found that many of the state-sponsored plans reduced fees and improved investment options over the past 12 months. The Chicago-based company is best known for its research on mutual funds, but it also rates 529s, named after the federal tax code that created them in 1997. States set their own guidelines for these investment accounts, which permit withdrawals for college expenses to be made free of federal taxes…

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Confidential records breached at Fla. college

Computer hackers broke into a Florida college’s computer system and stole the confidential information of nearly 300,000 students statewide and the school’s president, officials said Wednesday, the Associated Press reports. The problem that at first involved just employees at Northwest Florida State College now is much larger than suspected. The Department of Education said hackers stole 200,000 records including names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, ethnicity and gender for any student statewide who was eligible for Florida’s popular Bright Futures scholarships for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years.

“We speculate this was a professional, coordinated attack by one or more hackers,” said college President Ty Handy in a memo that went out to employees on Monday. Handy said the hackers did not get all the information from one file, but instead were able to piece together enough data to steal identities of at least 50 employees including his own…

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Texas affirmative action plan in trouble at court

The fate of the University of Texas’ affirmative action program rests with the Supreme Court, where skeptical conservative justices indicated they are ready to impose new limits on the use of race in college admissions, the Associated Press reports. Liberal justices more supportive of affirmative action worried variously at Wednesday’s argument that the court would either eviscerate its 9-year-old ruling upholding the use of race or enmesh federal judges around the country in evaluating college admissions programs. Depending on how broadly the court rules, the decision could affect not only public colleges but most private ones as well. That’s because federal civil rights law prevents discrimination by institutions that receive federal money.

“A decision condemning Texas’ admissions procedures might well be taken, depending on how it was written, to confound and restrict (our) effort to assemble diverse student bodies,” 37 small private colleges in 12 states told the court in a written submission. More than five dozen private schools, including the eight Ivy League colleges, chimed in to support the Texas plan…

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Ky. Town, college seeking a boost from VP debate

Politicians aren’t the only ones looking for a debate-related boost when Joe Biden and Paul Ryan go toe-to-toe in Kentucky, the Associated Press reports. In one way or another, the whole town of Danville is hoping to benefit from the vice presidential debate on Thursday. Streets have been repaved, flowers planted and new signs erected around this picturesque central Kentucky town of about 16,000. One bar is prepping cocktails named for Ryan and Biden while stores have stocked up on politically inspired merchandise, seeking to cash in on throngs of campaign workers, media and political junkies. Small but ambitious Centre College, the site for the upcoming debate, also hopes to raise its name recognition and energize fundraising.

“I think the whole town has that kind of spirit, let’s make it as nice as we can,” said Mary Robin Spoonamore, who owns a bar and liquor store a block off Main Street…

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Private college tuition growth slows

It’s what passes for good news on college costs these days: Private colleges and universities increased tuition 3.9 percent this fall, a rate well above overall inflation but the smallest increase in at least four decades, and substantially lower than prices have been rising at public universities, the Associated Press reports. The figures released Thursday by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities highlight some of the complexities within an overall trend of rising college costs. The list price at private colleges remains substantially higher than at publics – $29,230 this fall compared to a bit over $8,000 last year at public institutions (neither figure includes room and board). But private colleges, which enroll about a quarter of four-year college students, typically also award more financial aid…

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