Early applications increased by 13 percent this year, to a total of 3,937 applicants. The increase comes as Harvard and Princeton Universities eliminated their early admissions programs. The rise, however, falls far short of increases at other competitive institutions such as Yale University.

Legatum, a private investment firm with an interest in sustainable development, gave MIT a $50 million structured gift to create the new Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, according an MIT press release. The LCDE hopes to offer a fellowship program for graduate students, starting in the 2008–2009 academic year and to “create a platform for sustainable development,” according to the center’s Web site.

In health centers at hundreds of colleges and universities around the country, young women are paying sharply higher prices for prescription contraceptives because of a change in federal law.

The students stood in a circle on the campus quadrangle at the University of Chicago and held slender white candles as they remembered a gentle graduate student from Senegal who was killed early Nov. 19, weeks before he was to receive his doctorate.