Quick Takes

California veterans will be eligible for up to… $0 to cover their tuition under the new GI Bill. The figure, recently updated, is a striking reflection of the frustration many have had with the separation of tuition from fees in the process of calculating veterans’ educational benefits. The maximum benefits payable to veterans vary (pretty dramatically) by state, and are based on the highest resident, undergraduate public tuition and fees (respectively) charged in a state. But, as the Department of Veterans Affairs chart points out, California public colleges don’t charge resident undergraduate tuition. In lieu of tuition, they charge fees, and California veterans are in fact eligible to have up to $6,586.54 in fees covered per term under the new GI Bill. All of this is semantics (tuition versus fees) for veterans enrolled in undergraduate programs at public colleges, but for veterans hoping to apply their benefits to private colleges in California, the distinction being made here between tuition and fees matters. It means they’ll be able to apply $0 toward the tuition portion of a private college bill, and up to $6,586.54 toward the fee portion (and of course most private colleges heavily weight their costs on the tuition side of the ledger). It also means that private colleges in California may be less likely to enter into a federal matching program, the Yellow Ribbon Program, to cover the balance between what the standard veterans’ benefit covers and what private colleges charge. “Ultimately the fees in California work like tuition and the veterans administration ought to understand that,” said Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. “We actively encouraged a lot of our institutions who have skill in this area to apply to the Yellow Ribbon Program and to participate actively but I think what a lot of them are going to do is politely write back to the veterans department and say, 'Gee we’re sorry but times are very tight financially and you’ve put us in an unreasonable situation. And we’re sorry.' ” The new GI Bill goes into effect in August.

Due to growing concerns about swine flu, some universities have begun canceling study abroad programs in Mexico, including the University of Minnesota, which on Tuesday announced that the 21 students currently in Mexico were being advised to return home and that academic programs beginning in late May had been canceled (affecting 52 students). Various news outlets have also reported the canceling of programs at North Carolina State University and the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, to name a few examples. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week recommended that U.S. travelers avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico.

Ten days after a Florida grand jury indicted the president of Northwest Florida State College for misconduct and perjury, the college fired him Tuesday. The community college's Board of Trustees voted 4 to 3, with one abstention, to dismiss President James C. (Bob) Richburg, who has been caught up in a controversy involving state appropriations directed the college's way by a key legislator whom the college then hired. A college news release Tuesday said trustees were divided between those who believed "the board needed to move forward with new leadership and that their vote was not a reflection or judgment on Dr. Richburg's current legal issues, and others who wanted the board to "take more time to consider its options and alternatives such as suspension or asking for Richburg's resignation." The trustees selected Jill White, the college's senior vice president, to replace Richburg on an interim basis.

Researchers and medical faculty members should decline all gifts from medical companies and should refuse to publish or present material that is ghostwritten for such companies, says a report from the Institute of Medicine. The recommendations -- which arrive at a time of heightened scrutiny of such conflicts -- also suggest broader reporting requirements of researchers' ties to companies, without barring all such ties. Researchers should disclose ties not only to their employers but to other medical organizations, the institute urges. Relying too much on researchers telling only employers results in inconsistent requirements, the institute says, while leaving key players in the dark about possible conflicts.

Add Hunter College to the list of institutions (which now stands at 14), all led by women, that have received seven-figure anonymous gifts focused on financial aid. The Associated Press reported that Hunter received the $5 million gift in the fall, but only with recent publicity realized that it was part of a larger trend.

The U.S. Education Department announced Tuesday that it was sending about $1.3 billion to five states as some of the initial distributions from the State Stabilization Fund, which is designed to help governments backfill cuts they've made to their elementary, secondary and higher education systems. The states and the amounts they are to receive are Maine ($130 million), Minnesota ($547 million), Mississippi ($321 million), Oregon ($382 million) and Utah ($321 million).