Greek life communities on campuses across the U.S. are again facing a reckoning after recent student deaths due to alleged hazing.

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) freshman Adam Oakes died February 27, and Bowling Green State University (BGSU) sophomore Stone Foltz died March 7 after both consumed large amounts of alcohol at fraternity events.

Oakes was at an event at Delta Chi in Virginia, and Foltz was at an event at Pi Kappa Alpha in Ohio. In statements that expressed sympathy for the loss of Oakes and Foltz, the national organizations of Delta Chi and Pi Kappa Alpha announced that the chapters involved in the hazing allegations have been suspended.

"Regardless of if it's a fraternity or a sorority, it's absolutely despicable that these life-threatening actions are still carried out — often, with little to no accountability," Schanelle Saldanha, a junior at American University in Washington, told VOA.

"That, coupled with the accusations of racism and sexual assault, only reinforce why Greek life is such a toxic community for so many," she opined.

According to Inside Hazing, an anti-hazing website, while 65% of respondents in a survey of fraternity and sorority members said the primary goal of an initiation is to bond:

57% said it is important to tolerate psychological stress.

31% said humiliation is a significant element in an initiation.

29% said extreme consumption of alcohol is often part of an initiation.

29% said it is important to tolerate physical pain.

29% said they are concerned with the overuse of alcohol during pledge activities.

25% said paddles are usually used during initiation.

Not all the 12,000 chapters of 123 fraternities and sororities on U.S. campuses experience extreme violence or mayhem. Many of the 750,000 undergraduate members on the more than 800 campuses in the U.S. and Canada said they enjoyed being part of a community and gaining leadership skills.

Living in a house with other members offers support, socialization and even proximity to campus, students at Missouri State University told the student-run newspaper The Standard in 2018.

But, according to the Addiction Center website, while most agree that heavy drinking and partying is a big part of Greek life, driving pledges into harmful behavior is not.

"While the circumstances surrounding these deaths are still under investigation, we must be clear that hazing is a betrayal of the fraternal vows to which every member commits and has no place on campus. When hard alcohol is added to the mix, it is a formula for tragedy," the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) wrote in a statement to VOA.

Regrets and apologies have followed injuries and death at fraternity initiations since 1959, said Hank Nuwer, a professor emeritus at Franklin College and author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives.

But each year, young men pledging for admission to a fraternal organization turn up dead or gravely injured. They have been poisoned by excessive alcohol and have choked on their own vomit, like Max Gruver, who died at the Phi Delta Theta house at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 2017.

They have fallen down stairs and sustained traumatic brain injuries, like Tim Piazza, who died in 2017 at Beta Theta Pi at Penn State University. They have been found dead at the bottom of a gorge, like Cornell University freshman Antonio Tsialas, whose death was ruled an accident after he left a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in 2019.

"The goal is for something like this to never happen again and to build a national model that promotes health and safety and creates a climate of respect and inclusion that is conducive to academic success," wrote VCU President Michael Rao in the university's plan for a review of Greek life. He did not mention Delta Chi specifically in this statement.

BGSU has suspended Pi Kappa Alpha for alleged hazing and is working with law enforcement and pursuing its own code of conduct investigation, according to a message sent from BGSU President Rodney Rogers and Provost Joe Whitehead Jr. In addition, the university is halting new member initiations and all other events.

Before the pandemic, the Anti-Hazing Coalition — composed of parents of hazing victims — spoke at universities to educate students about bullying, forced excessive drinking and other potentially dangerous behaviors.

"They tell the stories of what actually happened to their sons, and the heinous behaviors of hazing that emerged on the campuses where their sons were attending college," said Dani Weatherford, CEO of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), which, with NIC, is part of the coalition.

And they "try to educate those students on the campuses where they're visiting, about what hazing looks like, how it can get out of control, and to urge them to make sure that these kinds of behaviors are not happening in their organizations and on their campuses," Weatherford said.

In a Zoom event on March 21, parent Rae Ann Gruver described how much her son, Max, drank at the fraternity, explaining that he took 18-20 "pulls" — or swigs — of a 190-proof grain alcohol called Diesel.

She said that the fraternity brothers made Max drink when he answered questions wrong, and that because he had been late to fraternity events, he was made to drink even more.

"They singled him out," she said. "The actions taken by these hazers resulted in my son's death."

Rae Ann Gruver and her husband, Stephen Gruver, have also worked to pass new hazing laws in Louisiana and founded the Max Gruver Foundation. Weatherford said NPC and NIC are also taking action at the legislative level.

While criminal accountability in hazing is under state jurisdiction, federal legislation addresses it through the END ALL Hazing Act and the Report and Educate About Campus Hazing (REACH) Act, Weatherford said.

The END ALL Hazing Act focuses on campus transparency and would require that universities post online any adjudications — formal judgments — of hazing incidents. The REACH Act aims to establish a federal definition of hazing and requires that hazing be a Clery Act crime, meaning that universities would have to include hazing in their crime statistics.

Weatherford recommends that hazing victims, at the least, report the acts to the university, but how things are handled and what resources are offered could differ according to the campus.

As for prospective students who are interested in Greek life but worried about the possibility of hazing, Weatherford advises them to be aware and know that both NPC and NIC — and the fraternities and sororities that fall under them — are anti-hazing organizations.

"We want to make sure that if there are bad actors, that those bad actors are held accountable and removed from our organizations," Weatherford said.

It’s tough to gain admission to Yale University, and it’s getting even tougher for international students as standout students from around the world set their sights on Yale.

The Yale Dale News, the campus newspaper, takes a look at the situation here.

Read the full story here.

Ruth Chane, a computer science major from Ethiopia, writes about her experiences settling into student life at Whitman College in the U.S. state of Washington.

"The community at Whitman College made sure I felt welcomed even before I stepped foot on campus," she says.

Read her essay here.

In The Student Life, the student newspaper for the Claremont Colleges, a consortium of five liberal art colleges and two graduate schools in Claremont, California, student Rochelle Lu writes about readjusting to her Shanghai home after spending a semester in the United States.

Read the full story here.

Cedarville University in the U.S. state of Ohio says it’s got more than 140 international students representing 44 countries.

Here, the school interviews Jonathan Sutton, director of international student services. He talks about his job and the opportunities for international students on campus.

Read the full article here.

Morehouse College, a private, historically Black liberal arts college in the U.S. state of Georgia, offers a guide for international students interested in attending the school.

Among the tips to apply and thrive at Morehouse:

• Take advantage of the school’s orientation program
• Turn to the school’s Center for Academic Success for tutoring, support and more
• Immerse yourself in campus life via clubs and societies

Read the full article here.

The administration of President Donald Trump said on Monday it will review Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism, which it says the educational institution has shown inaction in tackling.

Rights advocates note rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since U.S. ally Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Hamas militants' deadly October 2023 attack.

The Justice Department said a month ago it formed a task force to fight antisemitism. The U.S. Departments of Health and Education and the General Services Administration jointly made the review announcement on Monday.

"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said.

The agencies said no contracting actions had been taken yet.

"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."

The agencies did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Columbia had no immediate comment. It previously said it made efforts to tackle antisemitism.

College protests

Trump has signed an executive order to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's assault on Gaza. There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.

During last summer's demonstrations around the country, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned and student protesters were suspended and arrested.

While the intensity of protests has decreased in recent months, there were some demonstrations last week in New York after the expulsion of two students at Columbia University-affiliated Barnard College and after New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the removal of a Palestinian studies job listing at Hunter College.

A third student at Barnard College has since been expelled, this one related to the occupation of the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia last year.

The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department's power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.
A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating "toothless" resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

"Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses," said Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn't provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia's Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern's negotiations with student protesters a "stunning capitulation."

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Representative Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was "glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students."

Trump's order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week's order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

"The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found," said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools."

The Times of India breaks down the most popular subjects for international students to study in the U.S.

STEM and business lead the pack. Read the full story here. (January 2025)

U.S. News & World report addresses some of the misconceptions about U.S. colleges and universities, including the difficulty of getting a visa.

Read the full story here. (January 2025)

US News & World Report details the three top factors in foreign students' decision to study in the U.S. They include research opportunities and the reputation of U.S. degrees. Read the full story here. (December 2024)

A British student who did a year abroad at Bowling Green State University in Ohio talks about adjusting to life in America in a TikTok video, Newsweek magazine reports.

Among the biggest surprises? Portion sizes, jaywalking laws and dorm room beds.

Read the full story here. (December 2024)

Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health reaches out to international students by detailing the international student experience at the school.

Learn more about housing, life in Boston and more here.

China issued its first national action plan to build a "strong education nation" by 2035, which it said would help coordinate its education development, improve efficiencies in innovation and build a "strong country."

The plan, issued Sunday by the Communist Party's central committee and the State Council, aims to establish a "high quality education system" with accessibility and quality "among the best in the world."

The announcement was made after data on Friday showed China's population fell for a third consecutive year in 2024, with the number of deaths outpacing a slight increase in births, and experts cautioning that the downturn will worsen in the coming years.

High childcare and education costs have been a key factor for many young Chinese opting out of having children, at a time when many face uncertainty over their job prospects amid sluggish economic growth.

"By 2035, an education power will be built," the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that China would explore gradually expanding the scope of free education, increase "high-quality" undergraduate enrolment, expand postgraduate education, and raise the proportion of doctoral students.

The plan aims to promote "healthy growth and all-round development of students," making sure primary and secondary school students have at least two hours of physical activity daily, to effectively control the myopia, or nearsightedness, and obesity rates.

"Popularizing" mental health education and establishing a national student mental health monitoring and early warning system would also be implemented, it said.

It also aims to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas to improve the operating conditions of small-scale rural schools and improve the care system for children with disabilities and those belonging to agricultural migrant populations.

The plan also aims to steadily increase the supply of kindergarten places and the accessibility of preschool education.

The Open Notebook, a site focusing on educating journalists who cover science, has complied a list of U.S. graduate program financial aid information for international students.

Read it here.