The number of schools ranked highly in guides such as Barron's Profiles of American Colleges is increasing, without any evidence that these schools' instructional quality is also increasing. Applicants and their families should be wary of letting these rankings serve as the main criteria in their college decisions.

When the bubble deflated in 2007, an unprecedented number of weak mortgages went into default - those that were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, and those that had been securitized by Wall Street. This drove down housing prices and threw Fannie and Freddie into insolvency. 

Three years into the nationalization of housing finance by government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Authority, it is time to start reducing their footprints. 

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded that there's an extra 13 auto accident deaths attributable to Income Tax Day (i.e., generally April 15, but which falls on April 17 this year). This is a drop in the bucket compared to the actual carnage that might be reasonably attributed to paying taxes in America.

Our current "Great Recession" has hit the poor and middle class hard, but does this short-term downturn in prosperity characterize the last three decades? Bruce Meyer from the University of Chicago and James Sullivan from the University of Notre Dame take the long view and argue that things are not as bad as we think.

The Senate approved legislation to restore modest reductions to the loan limits applicable to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA. Except for the housing lobby, there is widespread agreement that reducing these limits is a key first step towards ending the government's chokehold on the now nationalized housing finance market.

Withholding needed arms from Taiwan in the present makes a future conflict--and US intervention therein--more likely. A cordial relationship with Beijing today wouldn't seem to be worth the future costs to the United States.

Shared wariness over China is the main reason the U.S. and Vietnam have embraced each other. But it shouldn’t be the only one.