Latest news with #Ivies
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
All the US presidents who attended Ivy League universities
Sixteen US presidents were educated at colleges and universities in the Ivy League. Joe Biden was the first US president since Ronald Reagan to not attend an Ivy League school. Donald Trump has recently taken on Harvard University, the alma mater of eight US presidents. Long before President Donald Trump engaged in a war against Harvard University, the Ivy League has been a breeding ground for world leaders, including many US presidents. Among the eight Ivy League schools, Harvard has educated the most US presidents — eight — followed by Yale, at five. On the other hand, a few of the Ivies have not yet seen one of their students go on to become US president: Brown University, Cornell University, and Dartmouth College. Most presidents in recent US history, including President Trump, graduated from an Ivy League school. In fact, from the end of Ronald Reagan's term in 1989 until the beginning of Joe Biden's in 2021, the presidency was occupied by Ivy League alums. Trump has had a fraught relationship with some universities since he signed an executive order during his first term prompting higher education institutions to take tougher action in combating antisemitism. Since October 7, 2023, US colleges and universities have been at the center of controversies regarding student protests against the war in Gaza, with Columbia University gaining national attention in April 2024 when students formed on-campus encampments demanding the school divest from Israel. Since January, the Trump administration has made attempts to block Harvard University from receiving federal funds and enrolling international students, citing the university's failure to meet "both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment," as members of the administration wrote in an April 11 letter addressed to the university's leadership. It came after the university refused the administration's demands to change hiring and admissions policies, among others. Harvard's president, Alan Garber, wrote in a letter to students and staff in April, "No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue." Here's which presidents were Ivy-League educated, and where they attended university. Princeton University The Ivy League's ties with the US presidency go back to the nation's founding. In 1771, founding father and fourth US president James Madison, who was president between 1809 and 1817, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University, then called the College of New Jersey. Woodrow Wilson, who was president between 1913 and 1921, also graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1879. University of Pennsylvania The ninth US president, William Henry Harrison, who served the shortest presidency in US history in 1841, attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied medicine, but he withdrew before his expected graduation date of 1793. In 1968, Donald J. Trump graduated with a Bachelor of Science in economics from Penn's Wharton School, which he had transferred to from Fordham University two years prior. Columbia University After graduating from Harvard College — Harvard University's undergraduate school — in 1876, 26th US president Theodore Roosevelt attended Columbia University's Law School, from which he eventually withdrew. His fifth cousin and the 32nd US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, attended Columbia's Law School in 1904 after graduating from Harvard College a year prior, but also withdrew from the program. In 1981, Barack Obama, then a junior at Occidental College, transferred to Columbia University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1983. Yale University The 27th US president, William Howard Taft, graduated from Yale University in 1978. His father, Alphonso Taft, who graduated from Yale in 1833, had founded the Skull and Bones secret society during his time at the school — his son, as well as two other US presidents, would become members of that society. In 1941, 38th US president Gerald Ford graduated from Yale Law School. In 1973, Bill Clinton, who was the president between 1993 and 2001, graduated from the same program. George H. W. Bush, who was president between 1989 and 1993, graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1948. His son and 43rd US president, George W. Bush, graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1968. Both of the Bush presidents were members of the Skull and Bones secret society founded by William Howard Taft's father. Harvard University Harvard University also has ties to the US presidency dating back to the nation's founding. The first US vice president and second US president, John Adams, attended Harvard University, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1755 and a Master of Arts in 1758. His son and sixth US president, John Quincy Adams, graduated from Harvard College in 1787. In 1845, Rutherford B. Hayes, who was president from 1877 to 1881, graduated from Harvard Law School. The 26th US president, Theodore Roosevelt, graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1880, as did the 32nd US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1903. In 1940, the 35th US president, John F. Kennedy, graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs. In his college essay, he famously expressed his desire to attend the school from which his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, graduated in 1912: "To be a 'Harvard man' is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain." In 1975, George W. Bush graduated from the school with an MBA, the only US president to have earned this degree. In 1991, Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, the most recent US president to attend the school. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Business Insider
All the US presidents who attended Ivy League universities
Sixteen US presidents were educated at the eight elite colleges and universities in the Ivy League. Joe Biden was the first US president since Ronald Reagan to not attend an Ivy League school. Donald Trump has recently taken on Harvard University, the alma mater of eight US presidents. Long before President Donald Trump engaged in a war against Harvard University, the Ivy League has been a breeding ground for world leaders, including many US presidents. Among the Ivies, Harvard has educated the most US presidents — eight — followed by Yale, at five. Most presidents in recent US history, including Trump, graduated from an Ivy League school. In fact, from the end of Ronald Reagan 's term in 1989 until the beginning of Joe Biden 's in 2021, the presidency was occupied by Ivy League alums. Trump has had a fraught relationship with some universities since he signed an executive order during his first term prompting higher education institutions to take tougher action in combating antisemitism. Since October 7, 2023, US colleges and universities have been at the center of controversies regarding student protests against the war in Gaza, with Columbia University gaining national attention in April 2024 when students formed on-campus encampments demanding the school divest from Israel. Since January, the Trump administration has made attempts to block Harvard University from receiving federal funds and enrolling international students, citing the university's failure to meet "both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment," as members of the administration wrote in an April 11 letter addressed to the university's leadership. It came after the university refused the administration's demands to change hiring and admissions policies, among others. Harvard's president, Alan Garber, wrote in a letter to students and staff in April, "No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue." Here's which presidents were Ivy-League educated, and where they attended university. Princeton University The Ivy League's ties with the US presidency go back to the nation's founding. In 1771, founding father and fourth US president James Madison, who was president between 1809 and 1817, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University, then called the College of New Jersey. Woodrow Wilson, who was president between 1913 and 1921, also graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1879. University of Pennsylvania The ninth US president, William Henry Harrison, who served the shortest presidency in US history in 1841, attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied medicine, but he withdrew before his expected graduation date of 1793. In 1968, Donald J. Trump graduated with a Bachelor of Science in economics from Penn's Wharton School, which he had transferred to from Fordham University two years prior. Columbia University After graduating from Harvard College — Harvard University's undergraduate school — in 1876, 26th US president Theodore Roosevelt attended Columbia University's Law School, from which he eventually withdrew. His fifth cousin and the 32nd US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, attended Columbia's Law School in 1904 after graduating from Harvard College a year prior, but also withdrew from the program. In 1981, Barack Obama, then a junior at Occidental College, transferred to Columbia University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1983. Yale University The 27th US president, William Howard Taft, graduated from Yale University in 1978. His father, Alphonso Taft, who graduated from Yale in 1833, had founded the Skull and Bones secret society during his time at the school — his son, as well as two other US presidents, would become members of that society. In 1941, 38th US president Gerald Ford graduated from Yale Law School. In 1973, Bill Clinton, who was the president between 1993 and 2001, graduated from the same program. George H. W. Bush, who was president between 1989 and 1993, graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1948. His son and 43rd US president, George W. Bush, graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1968. Both of the Bush presidents were members of the Skull and Bones secret society founded by William Howard Taft's father. Harvard University Harvard University also has ties to the US presidency dating back to the nation's founding. The first US vice president and second US president, John Adams, attended Harvard University, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1755 and a Master of Arts in 1758. His son and sixth US president, John Quincy Adams, graduated from Harvard College in 1787. In 1845, Rutherford B. Hayes, who was president from 1877 to 1881, graduated from Harvard Law School. The 26th US president, Theodore Roosevelt, graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1880, as did the 32nd US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1903. In 1940, the 35th US president, John F. Kennedy, graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs. In his college essay, he famously expressed his desire to attend the school from which his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, graduated in 1912: "To be a 'Harvard man' is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain." In 1975, George W. Bush graduated from the school with an MBA, the only US president to have earned this degree. In 1991, Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, the most recent US president to attend the school.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
These 5 Illinois cities are among the top 100 places for small and mid-sized cities in US
Five Illinois cities made a list of best places to live in the United States. Livability, a marketing company, annually highlights the nation's best small to mid-sized cities with affordable living costs. In partnership with Applied Geographic Solutions, the company commissioned data on thousands of cities. Livability curated the list based on nearly 100 data points that included local economy, housing and cost of living, amenities, transportation, environment, safety, education and health. The company limited the study to communities of between 75,000 and 500,000 residents. Here's how Illinois cities fared in the the marketing company's 2025 list of "Top 100 Best Places to Live." Naperville was the highest-rated Illinois city, placing fourth nationwide behind Flower Mound, Texas; Carmel, Indiana; and Sugar Land, Texas. The city received high marks for its school system, parks, bustling downtown, low cost of living, and sense of community. Livability ranked Evanston 17th nationwide for its historic charm, intellectual life, scenic lakefront, busy downtown and affordability. The company noted that Evanston is home to several universities, including Northwestern, which Forbes magazine placed on its 2025 list of 'New Ivies.' Illinois' Bloomington placed 25th nationwide, five spots behind its Minnesota counterpart. The city's tranquil setting was a key selling point, along with a strong economy, quality schools, and a thriving arts scene. Bloomington, Indiana took 54th place. Champaign came in as Livability's 80th best place to live in the U.S. In addition to an education system creating job opportunities that stimulate the economy, the city offers affordable housing and an active arts scene. Champaign is also home to the University of Illinois, which was also deemed by Forbes as one of the 'New Ivies." More: Two Illinois universities considered among the 'New Ivies' by Forbes. See the list Peoria made Livability's list for the third straight year, placing 83rd nationally. Livability cited the city's strong sense of community, affordability and diverse recreational options, including a variety of local festivals. This article originally appeared on Journal Star: 5 Illinois cities praised for affordability and culture
New York Post
26-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Harvard is about to get its clock cleaned by no-nonsense Trump & Co.
Tariffs are consuming so many headlines that you might have missed how Harvard, the pinnacle of the Ivy League, is struggling to come to terms with a simple, undeniable reality: It's about to get its clock cleaned by Donald J. Trump. Trump & Co., are sick of the antics of the Ivies — their blatant disregard for the law by looking to consider race in admissions, the far left tilt of the professoriate, and of course their acceptance of blatant antisemitic protests that erupted in support of one of the most heinous crimes in history, the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis by Hamas. Trump wants all of the above to stop, and to make it happen he is now throttling federal funds, and threatening their tax-exempt status, while the GOP Congress takes aim at school endowments, those large piles of investable cash that go a long way in keeping their lights on. Advertisement 3 Demonstrators gather on Cambridge Common to protest Harvard's stance on the war in Gaza and show support for the Palestinian people, outside Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 25, 2025. AFP via Getty Images And if you understand the endowment system, along with the array of weapons Trump has at his disposal, you will also appreciate that Harvard has almost no choice in this battle but to capitulate just like Columbia, another hotbed of antisemitism after Oct. 7, which has announced a set of sweeping changes to campus life and curriculum. That's why it's a bit baffling that Harvard actually has the chutzpah to fight Trump. Its president, Alan Garber, has announced a lawsuit against the White House after Trump froze $2.2 billion in federal aid over its woke policies like DEI and its half-hearted attempts to root out all forms of antisemitism. Advertisement As you might expect, Garber was cheered on by the political left for his defiance; people like Barack Obama, Larry Summers — both Harvard grads; Summers once ran the place — framed it as a heroic attempt to defend academic freedom against intrusive government. This fails the logic test — Harvard can still practice its academic freedom but not at taxpayers' expense. 3 U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes the 2025 College Football National Champions from Ohio State University to the White House during a ceremony on the south lawn on April 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. Getty Images It also fails the financial logic test. Put simply, based on the numbers this is a battle Harvard can't win if its goal is to maintain its size, scope and stature in elite academia. Advertisement Harvard's endowment is big; at $53 billion it's larger than most Wall Street hedge funds. But it funds a budget that is heavily reliant on federal aid. What court is going to say federal funds come with no strings attached? Dive deeper and you will fully understand why the endowment doesn't have the money to cover what Trump wants to cancel. First, much of the endowment is earmarked for specific needs based on conditions put forth by donors. Plus it's heavily invested in one of the more illiquid assets on Earth, private equity. 3 The Harvard University logo is displayed on a building at the school, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. AP PE comprises nearly 40% of its $53 billion portfolio. That means a $2 billion freeze of federal funds appears more like a $20 billion freeze because the money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is tied up in stuff like investments in early-stage non-public companies and other illiquid assets. Only a few very specialized buyers exist and they are looking for bargains. Advertisement Compounding Harvard's problems: Trump is threatening the university's tax exempt status; donors wouldn't be able to deduct the money from their tax bills. On top of that, the GOP House and Senate are likely to consider legislation to ramp up a tax on endowment returns from a paltry 1.4% to as high as 35%. VP JD Vance once pushed for such a move and Trump won't be far behind. As first reported about 10 days ago by your humble correspondent, Harvard will be selling a chunk of its PE in a market pretty barren of buyers these days because of a freeze in public offerings of stock, and questions about valuation as we head into a possible recession. This past Thursday, news reports surfaced that the school hired bankers to begin shopping a $1 billion chunk, right on the heels of a similar fire sale by Yale. Yes, Harvard will pay a steep price for its defiance.
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Bad Bunny (the College Course) Heads to the Ivy League
Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga are among a handful of living pop artists who have amassed enough cultural clout to result in college classes being taught about them. At 31, the global superstar Bad Bunny is about to have (at least) his third, as Yale University plans to offer a course about him this fall. The Yale course, 'Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics,' was conceived by Albert Laguna, an associate professor of American studies and ethnicity, race and migration. The Yale Daily News was the first to report on the new course, saying that Professor Laguna was inspired to create the class by Bad Bunny's latest album, 'Debí Tirar Más Fotos,' which the artist has described as his 'most Puerto Rican album ever.' Bad Bunny was raised in the coastal town of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, and has risen over the past decade to become a megastar of reggaeton and Latin trap, helping launch Spanish-language music into the contemporary pop mainstream. He has since netted three chart-topping Billboard albums, headlined at Coachella and become one of the most streamed artists in the world. But his new album, which was recorded in Puerto Rico, is a soulful ode to his roots and homeland, where he was born as Benito Martínez Ocasio. The Yale course intends to use the album to study the Puerto Rican diaspora, Caribbean politics and culture, colonialism and musical genres that Bad Bunny has experimented with, such as salsa, bomba and plena. In a phone interview, Professor Laguna described an experience with Bad Bunny's new album during a trip to New Orleans, which inspired him to design the class. 'I was walking around New Orleans listening to it, connecting with the Caribbean feel of the city in neighborhoods like the French Quarter, which can feel a bit like San Juan, and I just became struck by everything this album is doing,' Professor Laguna said. 'You have all these creative ways he's addressing Puerto Rico's colonial past and present in it and the current challenges the island faces. It's all over the album. And he's engaging these issues in music that's joyful.' The course, and its emphasis on a young Puerto Rican pop star, comes at a time when universities are under pressure from the Trump administration and conservatives to reshape themselves and to eliminate what could broadly be considered attempts at diversity, equity and inclusion. 'The intellectual right's perspective on classes like this is, they tend to pooh-pooh on them, seeing them as lacking rigor or even indoctrinating,' said Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, the author of 'Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America,' who cited previous criticism of courses on Ms. Swift. 'For the faculty teaching these classes, though, they take them dead seriously, as chances to view a topic through a critical lens.' 'The Ivies tend to make headlines,' Ms. Shepherd added. 'It can be easy to anticipate the Fox News headline banner, just because it's at the Ivies. But if it happened at a community college, it probably wouldn't even make a wave.' That response may come, but Professor Laguna believes the time is right to study Bad Bunny and the impact his music has already had on the world. 'I think we often mistakenly believe that to study culture we have to study the past, but that couldn't be more wrong,' he said. 'Bad Bunny is interesting for many reasons, and it's important for students to understand him in regards to the Puerto Rican diaspora, but he's also a global star, which isn't new. Music from the Hispanophone Caribbean has shaped the world before, and Bad Bunny is a link in a longer chain.' Professor Laguna said that the response to the course's announcement had been enthusiastic on Yale's campus. 'There are only 18 seats, and I've gotten notes from about a hundred students who want to get in,' he said. 'I've also gotten notes from Yale alums, some of them Puerto Rican, who appreciate we're doing this. There's really a hunger for this material.' Professor Laguna's course won't be the first of its kind. Wellesley College has offered a class taught by Petra Rivera-Rideau called 'Bad Bunny: Race, Gender, and Empire in Reggaetón.' And there has been one at Loyola Marymount University taught by Vanessa Díaz, titled 'Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico.' Those professors launched an online resource, 'The Bad Bunny Syllabus,' dedicated to their scholarship of the artist and his cultural influence. A representative for Bad Bunny did not reply to a request for comment about the Yale class, but the artist was asked about the other courses during an appearance on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' in 2023. 'Did you ever think you were going to be taught in a course at a school?' Mr. Fallon asked. 'That's a very crazy thing,' Bad Bunny said. 'I don't know, it feels weird. But I would love to take one of those classes.' 'You'd be really good,' Mr. Fallon replied. 'I think I would get an A,' Bad Bunny said. 'Totalmente.'
