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A good bet
Is college still a good investment?
Hal Cline, assistant professor of
economics at the Graduate School of
Education and Human Development,
thinks so. But although the investment
of time and money in a college
degree still provides a good return,
Cline says, recent studies indicate a
slight drop: The rate of return is
probably about nine percent now, as
against ten percent a decade ago.
Compared to other investments that
have not kept pace with inflation,
however, such as a savings bank
account, college is still a good bet.
According to Cline, studies by
other researchers showing that college
doesn't payoff the way it used to
have ignored the way the composition
of college students has changed in recent
years.
"Colleges have become more accessible
now to a larger proportion of
the population," he explains. "The
1960s were a time of great expansion
in the number and kinds of colleges,
a time when important legislation improved
equality of educational opportunity.
"Some studies have lumped
together very different kinds of
students to make their comparisons.
The decreased average salaries for
college graduates relative to other
groups do not indicate a decreased
rate of return to an individual; they
indicate expansion of educational opportunity.
"
These figures shouldn't affect an
individual's decision to go to college,
Cline advises. The important question
is, "If I go to college, what will
it do for me?"
In the media
Readers of national publications,
as well as of scientific and professional
journals, regularly come across
references to the scholarly
activities-and professional
judgments-of people at the University.
Following is a cross section of
some of those that you might have
seen in recent months:
o Eastman School student William
Eddins '83 grinned proudly in a
photo in a recent People magazine.
As well he might. William, fifteen
and a sophomore, is the youngest
undergraduate to enter the University
in recent memory. He gained this
distinction by skipping second and
third grades-and by being a firstrate
piano player (he was one of
twelve pianists, out of 200 applicants,
selected for places in his class at
Eastman). Now a student of David
Burge, professor of piano and cochairman
of the keyboard department,
he ended his first year on the
honors list. So much for what one of
his friends wrote, in affectionate
salute, in his high school yearbook:
"To the shrimpiest boy in the class."
D "Medication and diet aids may be
all right for the short term [if you
want to lose weight], but eventually
you are going to have to change your
eating habits," says Dr. Robert
Campbell, an endocrinologist and
professor of internal medicine at
Rochester. He was quoted in the October
1980 issue of Science Digest in an
article on how to control appetite and
Chase-Riboud
Prize winner
Barbara Chase-Riboud (above), a
sculptor and poet of American and Canadian
descent, is also a novelist of note:
Her 1979 work, Sal[y Hemings, has won
the most recent Janet Heidinger Kafka
Prize, given each year by the
University's annual Writers Workshop
and the Department of English. The
prize honors a work of fiction by an
American woman. Among Chase­
Riboud's predecessors as winners of the
Kafka Prize are Mary Gordon, author of
Final Payments (a portion of which was
reprinted in the Spring 1980 Rochester
Review), and Judith Guest, whose Kafka
Award-winning novel, Ordinary People,
was made into one of 1980's most successful
films.
eating behavior. In the article, he explained
the limitations of over-thecounter
diet aids containing bulk.
D Do pretty girls get more dates?
The answer is no, according to an article
in Seventeen magazine. The article
cited a study-written by associate
professor of psychology Harry Reis,
professor of psychology Ladd
Wheeler, and John Nezlek of the
College of William and Mary-that
found no correlation between
looks and social life.
"Beauties are supposed to be incredibly
desirable," Professor Reis
told Seventeen. "But men paint an
unrealistic picture of such women."
Men are afraid to be rejected by
them, so beauties may lose out, he
says. Reis also discussed attractiveness
and dating in a "Today"
show interview. A report about his
findings has been syndicated to
newspapers around the country. The
study had been mentioned in an
earlier Time magazine column.
D How to get the most out of
freshman orientation week was the
subject of a recent column in
Glamour. The column quoted advice
from Miriam Rock '42, associate
dean of the College of Arts and
Science at Rochester. Her suggestions
to incoming freshmen included getting
to know their advisers, other
faculty, and administrators; selecting
courses carefully; becoming familiar
with the campus and community;
solving any last-minute financial aid
problems; and checking out college
athletic facilities.
D "The director is blind and uses a
braille script, but he has an eye for
drama," announced the headline on
an Associated Press story about
David Richman, assistant professor
of English and director of the U niversity's
Drama House. The article
described Richman's techniques in
directing Macbeth, presented this past
summer by the University of
Rochester Summer Theatre.
DThe nausea, vomiting, water retention,
and irritability that characterize
premenstrual syndrome can be
treated medically, Dr. Anthony
Labrum states in an article in Science
Digest. Dr. Labrum is associate professor
of obstetrics and gynecology
and of psychiatry at Rochester. Most
premenstrual symptoms are
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