Welcome to the Real World

The latest target for online ads: university students streaming back to school. At North Carolina’s Appalachian State University, for instance, students looking at course catalogs on the school’s internal web site will see ads for bookstores, computer companies, and apartment houses. AppState associate professor of political science Andrew Koch complains that the school’s policy of letting advertising pay for the campus’ information infrastructure “tells volumes about the university, its funding, and the business mindset that has taken over. We’re throwing our freshmen to the wolves.” (New York Times) ...The TV Generation: smart enough to get into college, yet too stupid to resist ads