Federal student loan rates have dominated the news this week, and one former CIA Director is trying to hide on the sidelines as Gawker unveiled his massive salary for teaching just one class at CUNY. Also, read on to hear about the future of the English Major and the latest social trend: video sharing.

Student Loans Just Got Pricier

#Loans

Students expecting to get student loans next year may be facing a new, unexpected challenge if Congress can’t make a decision before their recess in August:

Subsidized Stafford loans, which account for roughly a quarter of all direct federal borrowing, went from 3.4 percent interest to 6.8 percent interest on Monday. Congress’ Joint Economic Committee estimated the cost passed to students would be about $2,600. – The Huffington Post

In a world where over 11% of people can’t afford to pay back there student loans at all, this increase amounts to a big hit.

Disgraced CIA Director Receives Comfy College-Funded Paycheck

#Professors

As Gawker points out in their report this week, most new professors at City University of New York will bring home only $25,000 per year for their efforts. Still, the school has seen fit to pay former CIA Director David Patraeus $200,000 for teaching a single class:

[Patraeus] will net a whopping $200,000 a year for the course, which will total about three hours of work, aided by a group of graduate students to take care of “course research, administration, and grading.”…That works out to approximately $2,250 per hour. – Gawker

Fortunately, it looks like his salary will be granted from a “Private Gift,” but it’s still got people questioning this use of funds.

Humanities Majors Continue to Decline

#Majors

English, History, Literature, and the rest of the humanities majors have dwindled, and many believe that’s a problem. It’s easy to let them pass by the wayside when faced with an economic crisis, but is there something more we can do to help them return to glory?

The teaching of the humanities has fallen on hard times. So says a new report on the state of the humanities by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and so says the experience of nearly everyone who teaches at a college or university. Undergraduates will tell you that they’re under pressure — from their parents, from the burden of debt they incur, from society at large — to choose majors they believe will lead as directly as possible to good jobs. Too often, that means skipping the humanities. – New York Times

The Social Medium of 2013: Micro-Video

#Technology

Snapchat, Vine, and now Instagram have all made a big splash in the mobile social networking markets, and it looks like that trend will continue into 2013. More on micro-video on CNN.

With more students getting their news on social media than ever before, it’s no surprise that they’ve learned to be skeptical. In the news media’s desperate attempt to cry out, “First!” when it comes to breaking news, publications are more likely to push content out before it’s been properly checked. 66% of millennials report mistrust in the accuracy of the news they receive, and that matters:

Almost 70 percent of millennials would rather be the last to know the news than receive inaccurate information. – PR Daily

Full infographic at http://www.ypulse.com/post/view/millennials-and-news-fact-checked

Fortunately, there are ways to build trust with readers from the millennial generation. Here are a few ways you can foster trust with young readers:

1. Get Familiar with Their Technology

It seems that every few weeks there’s a new app or social network that kids are suddenly using and spreading like wildfire. While you don’t have to figure out how to use every network out there, you should definitely be familiar with the big ones like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Also, keep your ears and eyes open for new players. Recently, Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat have all found a place into youth culture in a big way.

2. Make Users Your Advocates

Young users are more likely to trust their peers than to trust your marketing materials. They’re used to hearing how great your product is from your commercials or press releases, but they rarely hear it from their friends. It should be easier than ever to give your current users incentives to talk about you on social media, so don’t be shy. You might get really good results if you just try.

3. Know the Culture

In order to be trusted, you’ve got to keep your brand relevant. This means knowing a little bit about the institutions and brands your readers will and won’t trust, and hopefully keeping your company in the former group.

4. Be Honest

Finally, young customers and readers will value honesty over undeserved hype. When you screw up, let people know you screwed up. When you add a new feature or product, don’t make it out to be more revolutionary than it really is. Honesty in news delivery is the same as honesty in press release delivery; it’s always the best policy.

How do you get young, skeptical readers to believe your stories? Leave your ideas in the comments below.

The past week brought tragedy and remembrance to one college campus in California and hope for a student coming to Vermont. Read on for this week’s top college headlines.

Five Dead After Horrific College Shooting in Los Angeles

#Crime

A young man who lived near Santa Monica College in L.A. murdered three bystanders, his father, and his brother before being killed by police in the college library. As the victims were remembered during this week’s graduation ceremony, more information has come to light about the shooter’s weapon and past:

“The assault-style rifle used by a Santa Monica gunman to kill five people last week appears to have been put together using component parts… the semi-automatic weapon appears to have been built with parts that are legal to obtain, but put together make the rifle illegal in California.

“[The gunman]’s last reported contact with law enforcement was seven years ago when bomb-making materials were found at his house during a search prompted by threats to students, teachers and campus police officers at Olympic High…” – CBS News

The deadly incident brings the total number of school-related shootings in America to at least 12.

Afghani Civil Rights Activist Gets Help From US Students

#World

Ali Shahidy has been actively involved in furthering civil rights in his home country of Afghanistan, and with only $8500 remaining for his tuition, students at Norwich University in Vermont are helping him reach his goal.

“While his family struggled to get by, Shahidy found a way to excel at school. He fashioned notebooks out of posters and flyers from political campaigns. When electricity to their home was shut down every night at 10 p.m., he literally burned the midnight oil – doing homework by the light of a lamp. When he became the first member of his family to graduate high school, he was near the top of his class.” – Fox News

Ali’s inspiring story is the kind of thing that Afghanistan needs. After decades of war, the country is on the verge of independence as American troops prepare to withdraw in 2014.

100 Pounds of Marijuana Found Near Nothwestern’s Chicago Campus

#Crime

Photo by “it was 3 a.m.” on Flickr.com

More than 100 lbs. of Marijuana (valued at over $100,000) was found in an Evanston, IL resident’s recycling bin this week:

“On Saturday afternoon, a resident called police after discovering “suspicious items” in a recycling container in the 1000 block of Brown Avenue, police said. When officers looked inside the 50-gallon container, they found nine packaged blocks of marijuana having a total weight of approximately 100 pounds and a street value of more than $100,000.” – The Chicago Tribune

The investigation into who left the pot there and why is still ongoing, but police are certain that this find will put a strain on the marijuana trade near Northwestern’s campus.

7 Things High School Seniors Should Know About College

#Tips

The New York Times’ college blog has released their list of the most important things high school seniors should know about college. As expected, much of the emphasis of this advice is on handling the new-found independence that college brings:

“You need to be your own boss. Figure out when things need to be done and do them, week by week. The professor or teaching assistant might remind the class when the exam is or when the paper is due, but no one will contact you when you have missed the test or have not handed in the paper.” – The New York Times Choice Blog

Subscribe to UWIRE’s College Media Blog to receive the top college news in your inbox every week.

Photo by Eva Blue on Flickr

Unlike most social networks, Reddit isn’t simply a distribution platform for journalists and bloggers. It has the amazing ability to actually “create” news, and that makes it well-worth your time as a PR professional.

How Blogs are Using Reddit

Since I started “redditing” a couple years ago, I’ve seen an increasing number of blogs and mainstream news sources pick up stories from the social network. For example, this post on Reddit of Kevin Spacey photobombing a young woman made it to the front page on April 30th. The very same day, someone from BuzzFeed posted the photo with the headline, “Kevin Spacey’s Awesome Photobomb.” Not exactly hard-hitting reporting, but it is BuzzFeed after all.

The Good

The strange thing about this social-first approach is that most social networks seem to be built for sharing content after it has been created. Twitter might be an exception, but with only 140 characters, you really have to post links to get any substantive stories out there. I for one think that news being created, discussed, and shared on social networks before it hits mainstream media isn’t a bad thing. It’s more democratic, and while it might not work for every kind of news story, it gets the community involved in shaping stories, and takes more of the power away from a seemingly-elite group of newsroom journalists at the top.

The Bad

Of course, there are issues with taking a job previously done by a trained reporter and putting it in the hands of the crowd. One example of this system failing occurred during the Boston Bombings. Redditors created and spread a lot of false rumors that took off without much real evidence. There have also been complaints of sexism, discrimination, and a generally chauvinist attitude, so if you do keep up with the trends on Reddit, you have to keep in mind that not everything you read is true and the viewpoints you’re getting are likely skewed.

The Takeaway

Despite it’s shortcomings, Reddit can be a great place for getting stories or press releases out there in an unconventional way. Use the proper subreddits, answer questions from the crowd, or just start listening and commenting. You’ll pretty quickly see how powerful the network can be. For more tips on using Reddit as a PR tool, check out this post on PRDaily.com.

Young men at Brown University in Rhode Island are getting some pretty exciting news this week, and the education department admits that they might have given away a few hundred million dollars more than they had to this year. Read on for this week’s biggest college news headlines.

Harry Potter Starlet to Return to Classes at Brown

#Entertainment

It looks like Emma Watson will be back in school this fall. According to BroBible:

“Watson originally enrolled in the school back in 2009, then took time off in 2011 for Hermoine-related responsibilities. She’s currently taking a class at NYU, and now needs a few more credits to get a degree.”

So what is the former Harry Potter turned sex-symbol studying? History according to FanPop.

Ohio State’s Charismatic and Quirky President to Retire

#Local

After making some jokes about rival sports teams that didn’t sit well with critics, President Gee will be leaving the university that he has done so much for over the past several years. According to CollegeSpun:

“Gee’s seemingly-forced retirement comes down to the spotlight that Ohio State football draws in the national media. Gee’s retirement won’t really have an effect on that football team, but it will have a huge effect on the institution. The media seems to forget that Ohio State is actually a school, not just an athletic program.”

With a long and proud career behind him, we’ll just hope this minor gaffe at the end doesn’t change the way he’s remembered.

Another Side to the Student Loan Debacle

#Politics

As student loan debt continues to gain front-page attention, there’s another number that’s steadily increasing and worth watching: student loan fraud. According to the Huffington Post:

“The Education Department’s watchdog says the number of college students who are suspected of engaging in loan fraud has increased 82 percent … [and] estimates the government issued $874 million in suspected fraudulent student loans since 2009.”

Almost a billion dollars in fake student loans seems like quite an oversight, but with more than $1 trillion in student debt outstanding, it’s really just a drop in the bucket.

Boston, Seattle, and Denver Top the List for Best Cities for Recent College Graduates

#Lifestyle

The class of 2013 faces a tough, but slowly improving economy. This week, NerdWallet put together a comprehensive list of the best post-college towns for the class of 2013. Their criteria included the following questions:

1. Will you have peers and others your age?  Fresh grads want to live in young cities with plenty of twenty-somethings to meet.  We included the percentage of the population between the ages of 18 and 24 in our analysis.

2. Will you have an active social life?  We proxied social life by the number of bars per 1,000 residents

3. Is the city walkable?  Can you live there without a car? Most recent grads don’t have cars or savings to buy a car, so we included the city’s Walk Score, which measures how easily you can get around without having a car.

4. Can you afford to live there?  Recent grads often have low salaries and no savings, so we included the median cost of rent.

5. Can you get a job?  To assess the availability of jobs and local economy, our calculations include each city’s unemployment rate.

Subscribe to UWIRE’s College Media Blog to receive the top college news in your inbox every week.

Let’s be honest, nobody likes plodding through a massive wall of text. According to some surveys, viewers may be up to 85% more likely to buy your product if you simply show them a video. While there’s no way to guarantee that your press release will be a big hit, including one of the following forms of rich media can certainly help. Here are some quick tips for using media to enrich your release:

1. Video

With the explosion of video sharing platforms like YouTube and Vine, some brands are achieving a lot of success by getting out to consumers and journalists through digital video. It’s getting surprisingly easy to record and share videos online, so if you aren’t including videos (or links to them) in your press releases you’re missing out on a big opportunity.

2. Audio

As podcasts become increasingly popular, companies are finding the new form of online radio to be an excellent way to reach listeners. Whether this means starting your own podcast and linking to it in your release or referring to another podcast that helps make your message more clear, it’s definitely worth including some form of audio information for your readers.

3. Photos

It should be obvious by now, but good press releases, blog posts, and marketing materials have to include some form of attention grabbing image. You’ll notice that we don’t add anything to our College Media Blog here on UWIRE without posting an image, and there’s a reason for it.

4. Infographics 2.0

You might think that by now infographics are a bit overdone. So many of them seem to be cheap novelties that you might be telling yourself that it’s time to move on to something better. Well, that something better might be  coming sooner than you think. In 2013, you can expect to see more interesting and interactive infographic designs that take advantage of real-time data as well as advances in HTML5. Check out Prezi or Infogram if you’re interested in creating your own.

What multimedia elements have you found to be helpful in your press releases? Would you prefer to use a PR Distribution company that allows rich media? Let me hear your take in the comments below.

Keeping up with the latest trends on college campuses can be tough for public relations professionals. Even more challenging is navigating the hundreds of different college news sources and blogs out there. Fortunately, we make it our business to know the most popular and trafficked college blogs on the web. As of June 2013, here are the most popular college blogs in 2013:

1. Bro Bible

Part blog and part news magazine, Bro Bible is definitely geared towards male humor. They feature news, funny videos, and racey photos of good looking women. It isn’t all that professional, but they do a good job mixing aggregated and unique content.

2. Huffington Post College

The college arm of one of the web’s most popular sites, HuffPo College does a great job bringing together news, opinion, and expert advice from sources around the web. Much like most popular sites on this list, their focus is as much on aggregation as it is on original content creation.

3. Elite Daily

Claiming to be “the voice of Generation-Y” may be a bold statement, but as the internet’s third most popular college blog, it might not be far off. Elite Daily balances humor, inspiration, and current events on their site, and also aggregates snippets of articles from other sources from time to time.

4. The Gloss

A part of Alloy Digital’s network of blogs, The Gloss focuses on fashion and beauty tips as well as celebrity news and gossip. As they say on their site, “Our readers are motivated, informed 20-somethings who hop from the gym to the office to happy hour without batting an eye,” making The Gloss the most popular college blog geared towards women.

5. Busted Coverage

With the best sports news and photos of sexy women, it’s no surprise that Busted Coverage performs well within the college male demographic. Their content is also a blend of aggregation and unique stories.

6. College Humor

7. HerCampus

8. Uloop

9. COED

10. Camelback Music

11. The Choice by New York Times

12. Betches Love This

13. College Fashion

14. College Cures

15. College Fashionista

16. New York Times College

17. College Candy

18. Living the College Life

19. The College Crush

20. Cheap Scholar

Do you have other college blogs that readers should keep an eye on? Let us hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Popularity data provided by MyUdaily.

Even experienced public relations professionals may struggle when trying to connect with younger readers. College students are a special case; they’re smart, social, and very savvy to “trickery,” which makes it even tougher to connect with them through a press release. That said, they are curious and often willing to try new products or services if the value proposition makes sense. Here are four tips for writing college press release titles:

1. Put Yourself in College Students’ Shoes

First of all, think about the things that a college student needs:

1. Food
2. Money
3. Grades
4. Friends

If your product or service relates to improving any of the above areas of the student’s life, you’ve got a potential winner. The challenge now is to offer it clearly and succinctly.

2. Get to the Point

Students are busy. Between classes, seeing friends, keeping up with their favorite TV shows, working, and trying to stay in shape, they are constantly browsing the internet for interesting tidbits of information. The problem is that they don’t spend much time with any one source, so you’ve got to hit them quickly and often if you want to get noticed. The title of your release should be short (one sentence or less), and it should tell the reader what you’re offering and why it appeals to one of the above “college student needs.”

3. Don’t Demean or Deceive

A title is like a promise, so it’s really only half the battle when writing your press release. Even if you have a very appealing title for your college press release, it won’t mean a thing if the content in your release doesn’t measure up. College students are constantly bombarded with ads and the increasing number of deceptive marketers out there tends to make them wary. It helps if you include some social proof in either your release title or content.

4. Think about Share-ability

Social media is the channel of this generation. Newspapers, blogs, and even search engines are continually being set aside as students spend more time sharing and consuming media on social networks. For press releases, this means that your title has to be “click-worthy,” and “share-worthy.” Here are some great things to consider (via Moz.com):

“Assuming all other factors neutral for the moment, let’s look at what I think are 7 most important ingredients of your titles;

1. Curiosity
2. Benefit
3. Emotion
4. Tangible
5. Appearance
6. Sound
7. Expectation”

Do you have your own tips for writing college press release titles? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

I remember back in high school – and to a lesser extent college – all the cool kids wore the right name brands, and Abercrombie & Fitch was definitely one of them.

By my third or fourth year in college I had worked some internships, had some “real” jobs, and most of my classmates were started to dress a little less like college kids. By this point, Abercrombie’s allure was fading fast. Now that I’m out of the college environment I almost never see the brand’s trademark chest logos and moose insignia, and I’m definitely not in a hurry to make a stop in the overly loud and pungent store.

So, for a brand that has a very narrow demographic (older high school kids and younger college students), some degree of exclusivity might be a good thing. Still, not many people are impressed with CEO Mike Jeffries’ comments about Abercrombie not being for everyone – specifically people who are overweight.

Exclusive isn’t bad, saying stupid things is.

Plenty of designer labels don’t make sizes over a certain threshold, so Abercrombie’s choice to stop serving customers who wear more than a size 10 isn’t that strange. The part that is damning for the company are Jeffries’ comments. Specifically:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

While I’m sure plenty of snobby, designer brands say this kind of thing behind closed doors, you aren’t going to win many new fans saying stuff like this in public. Just a few days after Jeffries’ comments started getting press, the outrage and mockery began. One man began handing used Abercrombie clothing out to homeless people, and plenty others have voiced their disgust on social networks.

Truth about Abercrombie & Fitch twitter.com/TanarexicBelle…

— Tanarexic Belle (@TanarexicBelle) May 15, 2013

So, are students going to toss out the Abercrombie brand anytime soon? Maybe not, but either way, this should serve as a good reminder that some marketing strategies are best kept internal.

College students are an important market for advertisers and public relations professionals. They are forming habits and relationships with brands that will continue throughout their lives, and even though many of them are relatively poor now, they’re likely to make more than $1 million more than those who stop their education at high school.

Because college students are such a highly sought demographic, they tend to get bombarded with ads almost all the time. It’s difficult to walk around a major college campus without seeing dozens of posters, banners, promoters, and coupons attempting to lure college students into giving their brand a shot.

Content Helps You Cut Through the Noise

Fortunately, there are ways to get in front of students and grab their attention without adding to the noise, and one of the best ways is through press releases. College newspapers are still a major source of entertainment and information for students, and at some schools their daily print circulation might be in the tens of thousands.

Getting a story in just two or three major college newspapers or a couple college blogs can be an invaluable way to create a buzz around your product or service. Plus, with the advent of the internet, your message that starts at one school can easily spread its way virally around the world. It’s easy to see the advantages to getting a story published, but the better question is how can you do it?

Getting Student Journalists to Read Your Release

There are a few things that you can do to instantly boost the credibility of your release, whether you’re using UWIRE or a similar press release service:

1. Use a trusted source – Sending a release from your company or personal email address can work, especially if you’re just trying to reach a few college campuses. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to reach hundreds of campuses quickly unless you have an established relationship to begin with. Sending your release from a trusted source will ensure that

2. Be genuine – One of the biggest mistakes we see in press releases for students is a lack of honesty. You’re a real person writing a release to reach other real people, right? Treat them as such.

3. Offer links, quotes, and follow-up information – Sending a release that leaves the reader with more questions than answers is probably a bad idea. While good journalists will certainly double-check any information you include in your release, they appreciate being given as complete of a picture as possible.

4. Don’t forget online news – With over half of students using a smartphone every day and nearly all of them in possession of a personal computer or laptop, it’s hard to deny the role of online media in their daily lives. If you only get in front of print journalists, you’re missing a massive share of the market for student written news.

If you’re a PR professional who’s had success reaching students, we’d love to hear your story! Just email info@uwire.com for details.

Photo by NS Newsflash on flickr.com