What kind of society sends its young people from higher education into adulthood this way? I’m aware I’m only talking about those lucky enough to go to college, when roughly one-third of high school graduates don’t – but if this is the way we treat our relatively lucky kids, the rest of them don’t have a prayer. For many, the school to prison pipeline functions much more efficiently than the school to college one; California is one of at least 10 states that now spends more on prison than higher education. According to the Federal Reserve Bank, two-thirds of college graduates leave with some debt, and 37 million Americans are repaying a student loan right now.

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And yet, if this higher interest rate convinces even a few 18-year-olds not to take on huge debt for that Musical Theater degree, maybe it's not so bad. As college tuition costs rise and students' debt levels follow, a chorus of voices has come to defend the noble bachelor's degree against those willing to question the laughable notion that college is a good investment, period -- regardless of out-of-control tuition costs, stagnating wages or ominous federal jobs reports.

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Powell said she was working at a civil rights foundation in Mississippi to finish her psychology degree when she was called back to Grace University in Omaha and confronted about the relationship. She was eventually expelled - then sent a bill for $6,000 to reimburse what the school said were federal loans and grants that needed to be repaid because she didn't finish the semester.

Powell is now fighting the Omaha school, arguing that her tuition was covered by scholarships and that federal loans wouldn't need to be repaid in that amount. She also notes she was kicked out even after undergoing months of counseling, spiritual training and mentoring insisted upon by the school following her initial suspension.

"I shouldn't have this debt hanging over me from a school that clearly didn't want me," the 24-year-old said.

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HONG KONG — While college-bound American high-school students complain have to sweat through their fair share of tests, nothing in the US compares to the intensity and all-or-nothing stakes of China's dreaded gaokao.

Over the next two days, more than 9 million graduating Chinese students will take the gaokao, or "high test," the results of which will determine what university they can attend, or if they can attend college at all.

The test is so grueling that students have been known to hook themselves up to IV bags full of amino acids to fuel marathon study sessions, and exam sites have banned everything from bras to mobile phones.  Consisting of sections of math, science, English and Chinese, the gaokao lasts nine hours over two days. Perhaps the most dreaded section is an 800-character essay that is supposed to test a student’s writing and thinking ability.

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Surely, college students facing a bleak job market will find inspiration in Busey's advice: "How do you find your passion? With your left hand."

Classy.

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At a time when overall student debt approaches $1 trillion, the facts reveal that student loans aren’t loans, not in the traditional sense. They exhibit none of the qualities of modern consumer financial instruments, and are often sold under false pretenses, with the promise of a lifelong benefit that never materializes. We need to change how these loans work and have a broader conversation about what we should be doing -- including bankruptcy and refinancing -- to help future generations obtain a quality, affordable education, which is critical to our economic future.

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In an act of piousness, I did to him only what I would have had him do to me: I Googled his name.

I was met with dozens of pictures: grinning in Confederate flag T-shirts, grinning in “Straight Pride” T-shirts, grinning in mid-interview stills excerpted from the evening news.

He was the founder of the White Student Union. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he would be in my fiction writing class.

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"So, what I’d like to say to all of you is that you are all going to die," he joked.

"This is a good commencement speech! Because I’m figuring … it’s got to go up from here, right? It can only get better. This is good. It can’t get more depressing. You have, in fact, already begun to die."

But the speech was ultimately uplifting, as Whedon illustrated that despite the body's propensity to death, our mind strives to create a fulfilling life. He used this as an entry point to encourage young adults to listen to the inherent contradictions in their thought and behavior:

You have, which is a rare thing, the ability and the responsibility to listen to the dissent in yourself. To at least give it the floor. Because it is the key, not only to consciousness, but to real growth.

To accept duality is to earn identity, and identity is something that you are constantly earning. It is not just “who you are,” it is a process that you must be active in.

And it’s not parroting your parents or even the thoughts of your learned teachers, it is, now more than ever, about understanding yourself so you can become yourself.

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In China, the headaches for the younger generation may have just begun.

This summer, nearly 7 million students will graduate from Chinese universities — a record high. Of these, only 27 percent of Beijing graduates and 30 percent of Shanghai graduates have lined up jobs — a record low.

This flood of jobless graduates joins an already-deep pool of underemployed, educated young Chinese. Over the last decade, the number of college graduates has multiplied six-fold, while the number of white-collar jobs has not kept up. According to the state-run China Youth Daily newspaper, the number of jobs available has dropped 15 percent since 2012.

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Kristian is a student at Walford and North Shropshire College in England but earns money as a Taylor Swift impersonator -- a fact that her classmates recently discovered.

"Some girls at college had started making nasty comments, but it escalated really quickly," she told the Daily Mail. "'The girl came up behind me and dragged me off my chair by my pony tail, then started kicking me in the face."

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I am lying in bed right now sobbing, which I've been doing a lot lately, and writing to get these twisted feelings out of my head and onto paper. I'm graduating college on Saturday ... wow, great, such an accomplishment. Did you read that in a monotone voice twinged with sarcasm? Because that is how I feel about it. Literally, whatever. I had so many hopes for this semester and everything has fallen apart.

I spent six months in 2012 traveling in Central America. Some of it was for school, some of it was because I wanted to throw a middle finger to everyone who has ever told me I couldn't do something. I planned the whole trip on my own, decided my travel itinerary, applied for an internship, and designed my senior thesis so I could do field work abroad on poverty alleviation, (I've had grad students tell me my undergrad senior thesis sounds like a grad level thesis). It was a monumental test of my independence and a challenge to all the fear I feel in my life. I wanted this trip to not be a generic study abroad experience; I wanted to break away, completely on my own and not rely on anyone else.

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In between reminiscing about his experiences at all-boys Hampden Sydney College (and "marrying a UVA girl"), sharing SAT vocabulary words and sending out a tweet, Colbert doled out some advice:

I don't know if you've seen it -- this week's Time Magazine called you "lazy, entitled narcissists," who are part of the "Me, Me, Me" generation. So self-obsessed — tweeting your Vines, hashtagging your Spotifys and Snapchatting your YOLOs — your generation needs everything to be about you. And that's very upsetting to us Baby Boomers because self-absorption is kind of our thing.

But, Colbert explained, while his generation is leaving grads "with fewer job opportunities," it's giving them a hard-learned lesson earlier in life: "that you must always make the path for yourself."

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My high school class and I moved like a school of fish: we graduates were capable of going off on our own, in whatever direction we chose, but something demanded we all swim as one, curving, cutting, sashaying together, wiggling our way to college. Except for a few miscreants, we all ended up in college.

In high school, if someone asked me what my “plans” were, I’d click into brainwashed robot mode: my body would become rigid, my pupils would dilate, and in a monotone, I’d recite, “I-will-go-to-the-best-college-I-can-get-into. No-matter-the-cost.” At some point, I’d convinced myself that going to college was what I really wanted to do. So I went to Alfred University, a pricey private college in southern New York. My first year at Alfred would cost me $18,450. Later, I would transfer to a cheaper state school, and my total price tag for higher education: $32,000.

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I have read your column religiously for the last two or three years and want to truly thank you for sharing  your insight. I'm not sure even where to start about my situation. In truth, I lied, and not a little white lie but a big compounding nine-year lie. I have never told anyone about this lie because it seems so psychotic.

For starters, I'm an orphan and grew up in the state foster-care system. I was adopted mid-childhood by a woman who adopts and fosters children as her only source of income. This being said she was never a parent but a paid caregiver to an ever-changing array of children. I lived in a town that was small enough that everyone I came into contact with knew my story. I was "The Orphan." This fact defined my life for 18 years.

I dreamed of moving away and going to college from an early age. In my mind college was the place where I could start over and no one would know that I was "The Orphan," no one would have their parents around, and I would just be a normal person. Turns out that was anything but the truth.

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In addition to the whites-only restriction of the award, the Lydia C. Roberts Graduate Fellowship can only be given to a person from Iowa, who may not study law or certain other fields, and must return to the state for two years after graduation.

As the New York Daily News reports, the fellowship has not been awarded since 1997, but Columbia administrators would still like to see the terms of the award opened up to other students:

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Do you believe there is such a thing as a "quarter-life crisis"? I'm turning 25 next week, but I am so sick of waiting for my life to begin.

OK, background story: I decided very early in high school I wanted to be a nurse. I loved the idea of traveling and thought that nursing could translate across borders. So the life plan was simple: graduate from nursing school with a BSN, work two years as a staff nurse on a general medicine floor to get experience, then work abroad for Doctors Without Borders, return home and go to graduate school for my nurse practitioner degree, get married ... (you get the trend).

Well, Phases 1 and 2 have been accomplished. I'm currently working as a staff nurse at a busy city hospital and in September 2013 I'll have been working there for exactly two years. So September is the big month, time for me to move on, do something or go somewhere new.

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So here's a look at events from the past week to reaffirm your hope in human nature (or at least get you through another day).

1). It’s been a good week for LGBT rights. The Boy Scouts removed their ban on gay members (if not gay scoutmasters), and New Zealand passed gay marriage. National Party MP Maurice Williamson gave an epic speech in favor of marriage equality:

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The hearing and subsequent vote on the measure at A&M was an emotionally charged event, as reported by the Dallas Voice:

Less than 24 hours before the vote, the name of the bill was changed from the “GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill” to the “The Religious Funding Exemption Bill,” and specific references to the GLBT Resource Center were removed. However, opponents of the bill who packed a Student Senate meeting before the vote Wednesday said the name change did not alter the bill’s discriminatory, anti-gay intent.

With the crowd spilling into the hallways, an overflow viewing room was set up, and the Senate meeting had to be stopped several times so administrators could clear fire exits, according to a report in The Eagle of Bryan-College Station. Emotions ran high, with senators cursing and the woman assigned to tally their votes bursting into tears.

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I just read your column advising Lost in the Fog, and I couldn't help relating his/her feeling of imprisonment to my own. I'm a freshman in college and I'm extremely unhappy. I don't know exactly how to express this state of discontentment because I've never felt it before. In high school, I self-medicated a lot with pot, taking the pressure off myself. Now I'm at college and it's way harder so I had to stop smoking, but I'm miserable.

I can't seem to escape my ego. I fear constantly that I won't succeed in life -- and for some reason my definition of success is achieving some sort of artistic greatness that will result in fame. I realize this is a totally superficial and selfish goal, but I literally can't stop thinking about it. I tell myself to just be patient, to get through college so that I can explore different forms of art, but I can't find my niche and it's torturous. I feel like I'm a 35-year-old trapped in an 18-year-old's body.

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