12/84Percentage of college men who say they might commit rape if there were no chance of being caught: 35
10/85Rank of national and local Miss America pageants among all sources of college scholarship money for women: 1
11/85Percentage of all federal judges appointed by President Reagan who graduated from Ivy League law schools: 10
4/85Total annual expenditures of U.S. corporations on employee-education programs: $60,000,000,000
Total annual expenditure of U.S. four-year public and private colleges and universities: $60,000,000,000
5/85Percentage of all cases of measles in the United States that occurred on college campuses in 1980: 1.5
11/86Number of college courses on the Vietnam War offered in 1980: 58
12/86Percentage of female college freshmen who say there should be a law against homosexual relationships: 38
12/86Percentage of college students who say they spend more than half their waking hours worrying: 15
5/86Number of U.S. university scientists who have pledged to refuse Star Wars research funds: 3,100
In sorority membership: 25
4/87Rank of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Vogue among the best-selling magazines in college bookstores: 1,2,3
6/87Number of colleges that invited Vanna White to give their commencement address this spring: 0
12/88Estimated number of courses on “The Sixties” offered at American colleges and universities this year: 400
4/88Percentage of West Bank Palestinians who said in 1986 that violence is justified in pursuit of their cause: 87
6/88Number of universities that have a Barbra Streisand Professor of Women and Men in Society: 1
6/88Percentage of students at Dunkin’ Donuts University who do not pass the six-week training course: 5
11/89Percentage of American college students who say that some races are “more evolved” than others: 45
2/89Portion of all university funding for computer science research that comes from the Pentagon: 2/3
4/89Average number of points a student gains on the math section of the SAT per 100 hours of preparatory classes: 39
9/89Percentage of American colleges that do not require an American history course for graduation: 80
9/89Amount Cleveland public high school students receive toward college tuition for every A grade they earn: $40
9/89Percentage of college students who say “the higher the tuition, the better the quality of the education”: 27
10/90Number of the 6 best-selling extracurricular books in college bookstores that are collections of cartoons: 4
1/91Percentage of male college students who say that “some women look as though they’re just asking to be raped”: 84
2/91Number of months Nikita Khrushchev’s son, Sergei, spent as a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics last fall: 3
4/91Percentage increase, since 1988, in the number of American college students who have their own credit card: 37
10/92Asking price for a former U.S. Air Force nuclear-bomb shelter in Amherst, Massachusetts: $250,000
11/92Chances that a shoplifter in Washington, D.C., has been to college: 1 in 2
12/92Percentage of college students who say that their political opinions are similar to those of their parents: 44
2/92Percentage of all employed black American men with a college degree who earned poverty-level wages in 1979: 9.5
Percentage today: 14.8
4/92Number of weeks “Croatia’s Gotta Be Free” has been in the top ten on Croatia’s largest radio station: 12
7/92Percentage of male college students who believe that life is “a meaningless existential hell”: 27
7/92Percentage of female college students who say they would rather have sex with Harry Connick Jr. than Axl Rose: 76
9/92Amount of writing Florida state colleges require students to complete before their junior year, in words: 24,000
1/93Price of an eight-week course in acting for dogs, including room and board, at the Kamer Canine College in L.A.: $4,150
11/93Percentage of economics majors at Ivy League colleges who say at least one of their parents has smoked marijuana: 23
11/93Ratio of the average alcohol consumption of a college fraternity-house resident to that of a male college student: 3:1
7/93Chances that an American who graduated college since 1980 holds a job that does not require a college degree: 1 in 5
7/93Chances that an Ivy League college student cannot name both of his or her U.S. senators: 1 in 2
12/94Chances that a Santa Claus appearing in a mall this month has a college degree: 2 in 3
5/94Number of students enrolled this term in “The Films of Keanu Reeves,” a course offered at a Pasadena arts college: 15
9/94Percentage change, since 1992, in civil-rights violations by US. colleges, according to the Department of Education: +82
9/94Average cost of raising a child, through college, according to Town and Country magazine: $816,303
Number of years it would take an average working American to earn this amount: 31
10/95Number of states in which a black college graduate’s average income is at least 90 percent of a white college graduate’s: 4
12/95Federal grant made to Cornell University last July to create an “O.J. Simpson Trial Archive”: $17,000
3/95Number of Evergreen State College students enrolled in a yearlong program composed of courses based on Star Trek: 52
6/95Factor by which Harvard’s admission rate for alumni children exceeds that for other qualified applicants: 3
6/95Number of Ho Chi Minh scholarships awarded to students last year by a community college in New York City: 25
7/95Weight, in pounds, of an apple pie baked by students at Spokane Community College last July: 33,500
9/95Weeks after his appointment last fall that Mexico’s former secretary of education admitted he had no college degree: 6
9/95Percentage change in real dollars, since 1984, in the average tuition at a U.S. private college: +47
7/96Ratio of professional jobs available in Mexico in the 1980s to the number of Mexicans who graduated from college then: 1:4
9/96Percentage increase since 1980 in the average tuition at a U.S. public college or university: 138
Percentage increase since then in the average tuition at an Ivy League school: 77
12/97Percentage change since 1966 in the number of U.S. college freshmen who say it is important to follow politics: -50
3/97Chance that an American family can afford to pay full tuition at a private four-year college: 1 in 13
5/97Number of times Kermit the Frog has delivered a college graduation commencement address: 2
5/97Percentage change since 1980 in the number of college freshmen who say they feel “overwhelmed”: +100
9/97Percentage change since 1990 in the number of U.S. college students studying to be morticians: +45
9/97Number of languages taught in U.S. colleges and universities that were not taught there 10 years ago: 36
Number of languages taught 10 years ago that are not taught today: 15
1/99Estimated number of colleges that Newt Gingrich’s high-school football coach queried in vain for a big enough helmet: 5
3/00Rank of Adam Sandler and Bill Gates among the most popular role models with male college freshmen: 1,2
5/00Chance that a college student expects to be a millionaire by the age of 40: 1 in 2
6/00Number of “marriage studies” majors learning “the art of getting and staying married ” last term at a Pennsylvania college: 8
9/01Number of U.S. schools that use E-rater, a software program that reads and grades student essays: 95
9/01Endowment a tobacco company gave a U.K. university last year for a “corporate social responsibility” center: £3,800,000
9/01Hours that Amherst College agreed to ban coffee last term as part of a student’s performance piece about the drug war: 24
9/01Number of U.S. college students who were denied federal financial aid last year because of a prior drug conviction: 9,605
9/01Amount the federal government paid Harvard researchers in the 1990s to help design Russian market reforms: $40,000,000
9/01Number of Austrian skinheads who have attended college classes this year as an alternative to criminal prosecution: 33
1/02Number of U.S. colleges and universities that were asked by law enforcement to release student information last fall: 220
Percentage who are actually enrolled in a foreign-language course: 8
11/02Percentage of U.S. college students who believe the “next Bill Gates” is among today’s generation of college students: 50
Percentage who say they are the next Bill Gates: 24
11/02Number of colleges that have organizations to elect John Cusack as U.S. president in 2004: 172
12/02Number of Turkish college students detained in the last year for requesting Kurdish-language classes: 1,146
3/02Number of Las Vegas strip clubs purchased on September 10 by a Stanford medical-school professor: 3
4/02Percentage of first-year U.S. college students in 1981 and 2001, respectively, with “middle-of-the-road” politics: 57, 50
Percentage with “liberal” or “far-left” politics in those years: 21, 30
9/02Percentage of U.S. college students who say they would try to evade the draft if one were called today: 37
9/02Ratio of military recruiters to college counselors at East Los Angeles’s Roosevelt High School: 5:1
1/03Rank of Mom, Dad, and Rudolph Giuliani among those whom recent college graduates say they most wish to emulate: 1,2,3
4/03Minimum number of U.S. college students who developed scurvy from poor eating habits last year: 1
9/03Percentage of Indian college students who cite Gandhi and Hitler, respectively, as models for leaders of India: 23, 17
5/04Factor by which the unemployment rate of African-American college graduates exceeds that of white graduates: 1.9
9/04Percentage of college students majoring in the humanities who say politics are relevant to their lives: 72
1/05Percentage by which British university graduates are less likely than non-graduates to phone their mothers regularly: 20
Percentage by which they are less likely to make regular visits: 50
11/05Rank of the FBI among ideal employers, according to U.S. undergraduates polled in spring 2004: 138
Rank of Microsoft in 2004 and 2005, respectively: 1, 8
5/05Amount the Department of Homeland Security will spend this year directing research at U.S. universities: $45,000,000
9/05Chances that college students select as “most desirable” the same face chosen by the chickens: 49 in 50
9/06Number of schools and publishers that subscribe to a California company’s plagiarism-detecting database: 5,000
Chances that a college paper today is plagiarized at least in part, according to a study using the database: 3 in 10
9/06Chances that a recent graduate from a U.S. four-year college has attended more than one institution: 3 in 5
1/07Chance that a student at a private U.S. college in 1992 came from the nation’s top income quartile: 1 in 4
Chance today: 1 in 3
1/07Amount that U.S. college students spent last year on furnishings for dorm rooms and apartments: $3,800,000,000
10/07Chance that a child of immigrants to Germany is granted a spot at a college-preparatory high school: 1 in 7
11/07Estimated percentage of women’s college sports teams that were coached by women when Title IX was enacted in 1972: 90
Percentage today: 42
2/07Average duration, in years, of the 130 civil wars fought worldwide since 1945, according to a Stanford professor: 11
3/07Portion of female college students and graduates who say attending Spring Break results in “increased sexual activity”: 3/4
5/08Factor by which a gay U.S. college student is more likely to attempt suicide than a straight one: 2
1/09Rank of Mom, Dad, and Rudolph Giuliani among those whom 2002 college graduates said they most wished to emulate: 1,2,3