Quick Hits (3.20.12)

Budgets are tight and tuitions are rising. But on college campuses, construction cranes are still sprouting like towering trees. “America’s universities and colleges have spent more than $11 billion on new facilities in each of the last two years—the depths of the economic downturn—which is more than double what they spent in 2000.” (Hechinger Report)

Filling in the (music) notes. An after-school New York City music program, modeled after one in Venezuela, provides 80 mostly low-income children with free instruments and daily music lessons. More than 50 schools across the nation offer the same program. (PBS NewsHour)

“I’ve been playing a lot of basketball lately … and annoying my dad.” Milwaukee middle-schoolers have called it quits on technology, in the name of charity. More than 100 seventh-graders unplugged from their devices March 1, but only 65 remain in their quest to make it to June 1. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Lovers of literature? A Michigan man was sent to the hospital after sustaining a head injury during a scuffle over “books and authors.” Since the disagreement took place on St. Patrick’s Day, perhaps it was more than just a love of books that fueled the argument. (AnnArbor.com)