Do MBAs Threaten Marriages?

Women who earn MBAs are more than twice as likely to get a divorce or get separated than their male counterparts, according to a new study by Washington & Lee University School of Law Prof. Robin Fretwell Wilson, reports The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The study, which surveyed 100,000 professionals, found that 11 percent of respondents who were women with MBAs described themselves as divorced or separated, compared with 5 percent of men with MBAs. "In a lot of ways women aren't getting the same deal as men. Women can't have it all because there is a social stigma to having or being a stay-at-home spouse," Wilson told WSJ. The study also found that 10 percent of women with law degrees and 9 percent of women with medical degrees were divorced or separated, reports WSJ.

Tech Firms Lobby for More Foreign Skilled Workers

The nation's top tech firms will compete this week for visas that will allow them to hire highly skilled foreign workers, reports The Washington Post. This year, companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and Intel are not expecting to get the thousands of workers each says it will need to maintain operations, reports the Post. "It'll be worse than last year," said Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft's managing director of federal government affairs, to the Post. "Because only 65,000 of these desperately needed visas are made available, it is highly likely that this year's supply of visas will once again be exhausted in a single day." Earlier this year, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates lobbied congress to up the number of H1-B visas for foreign skilled workers. Last year, the federal government received 123,000 petitions for H1-B visas, reports the Post.

Plans to Rebuild New Orleans Motionless 

More than a year after New Orleans officials unveiled their plans to rebuild the city, residents say they see little to no progress, reports The New York Times. The slow progress on the plan, which featured "Paris-like streetscape renderings and promises of parks, playgrounds and 'cranes on the skyline,'" has many residents feeling like they have to rebuild the city alone. "I haven't seen anything they've done to even initiate anything," Cynthia Nolan, a manager in a state motor-vehicles office who has painstakingly raised her house here nearly four feet, told the Times. "It's too long. A year later, and they still haven't initiated anything they decided to do?" But city officials say while they understand the residents' frustration, rebuilding a city is a long process.

Admissions Down at Top Colleges and Universities

Elite colleges and universities are reporting record-low acceptance rates, reports The New York Times. Schools such as Harvard College and Yale University are reporting 7.1 percent and 8.3 percent acceptance rates, respectively, rejecting as many as 93 of every 100 applicants, many of whom scored perfectly on the SATs, reports the Times. "We love the people we admitted, but we also love a very large number of the people who we were not able to admit," William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College, told the Times. The decline in acceptance rates comes amid a push by these universities to put more emphasis on SAT scores. Nearly 10 percent of Harvard's 27,462 applicants had perfect scores on the critical reading section of the SAT, and 12 percent scored perfectly on the math portion.

Number of Men Claiming Alimony on the Rise

Nearly 30 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against gender discrimination in alimony, the percentage of men receiving alimony is growing, reports The Wall Street Journal. The percentage of men receiving alimony grew to 3.6 percent in 2006, up from 2.4 percent in 2001, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. "Why the courts don't tell a husband, who has been living off his wife, to go out and get a job is beyond my comprehension," said Joan Lunden, the television personality who in 1992 was ordered to pay her ex-husband $18,000 a month. So what's fueling the rise in male alimony recipients? Many say they sacrificed their careers for the sake of their wives', reports WSJ.

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