I generally highlight one item from Ten Miles Square and one from College Guide in the Day’s End post, but since (a) cool stuff’s beginning to pile up, and (b) there won’t be a Day’s end post today (but rather a hiaitus before a SOTU live-blog), here are some posts you should not miss:

* At Ten Miles Square, Austin Frakt draws attention to, and asks the most important question about, evidence of a health care cost slowdown.

* Also at Ten Miles Square, Jonathan Bernstein reminds us that the continuing resolution expiration scheduled for the end of March could reverse some or all of the cuts made in the sequestration scheduled for the beginning of March.

* And in a third item at Ten Miles Square, Keith Humprhreys argues that Chris Christie does indeed have a politically valuable “It” factor (though I’d argue back that “It” may not be enough to get him a GOP nomination for president).

* At College Guide, UC Davis’ Norman Matloff makes the provocative case that U.S. universities are over-recruiting foreign science and math students for purely financial reasons, diverting U.S. students into other fields.

Enjoy.

Ed Kilgore

Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.