The U.S. Education Department released a final rule Friday that will bar certain students who have been convicted on drug charges in state or federal court from receiving Pell Grants, student loans, and other kinds of federal financial aid. College presidents should make teacher education a top priority for their institutions or get out of the business of training teachers, the American Council on Education says in a report being released today. But Louisiana voters rejected another measure that would have prohibited the Legislature from cutting appropriations below certain levels for public universities located in areas where new community colleges have opened. The University of Richmond is expected to sever its governing and financial ties next month to the Virginia Baptist association that founded it 169 years ago. The split is essentially an amicable divorce, prompted by some Baptists' concern over the university's new non-discrimination policy protecting gay people.
Some colleges say they benefit by hiring businesses to run their computer systems.
But the approach is not a panacea, according to administrators who have encountered problems with outsourcing. Meanwhile, Purdue University has had some success growing its own technology workers. Information technology can help community colleges meet students' needs and confront other challenges that their leaders expect to face in the next five years, according to the authors of a forthcoming book from the League for Innovation in the Community College. A new Ph.D. program at Florida Atlantic University aims to train public intellectuals, but critics question the concept. Members of the Senate and House of Representatives are completing a bill that would raise both the maximum Pell Grant and the budget of the National Institutes of Health.