Marketing to universities isn't just a marketing expert's job anymore. A recent trend shows that students applying to selective universities are engaging in techniques more suited for billboards rather than academics. Students are turning to private coaches, specializing in "packaging" a particular student to create their own personal "brand". The notion of a student trying to make themselves stand out from the rest of the applicant pool is being taken to the next level. So who is to blame?

As a large number of students are making the decision to study Arabic, American colleges and universities are trying to meet this demand by supplying the students with proficient professors. In one case, Hussein Elkhafaifi, an assistant professor and director of the University of Washington's Arabic language program, had to turn 150 would-be Arabic students away due to the lack of chairs. "This is a major challenge for us because there is no correlation between the increased enrollment, which is now up about 127 percent, to the number of teachers who are trained", said Elkhafaifi.

Undergraduate students who are part of minority groups are more and more attending universities that are classified as "minority serving", according to a U.S Education Department report released on Tuesday.