Quick Takes

How could things get worse in California, where voter rejection of a series of budget measures Tuesday has left public higher education planning for deep budget cuts? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, could go after the state's student aid program -- and the Los Angeles Times reported that is a serious possibility. According to the newspaper, the governor is considering a plan to eliminate new CalGrants. Over a year, 77,000 new grants would be awarded, at a total cost of $180 million. As students currently on CalGrants graduate, the program could be phased out, with even larger savings.

For months, Texas legislators have been lobbied about the state's "10 percent" admissions law, which admits all high school graduates in the state who are in the top 10 percent of their classes to the public institution of their choice. The University of Texas at Austin wants to limit the law, because too large a share of its freshman class is admitted that way. Advocates for minority students want to preserve the law, saying it has brought diversity to higher education. The Texas Senate has approved a bill that would limit how much of a class could be admitted under 10 percent and that measure moved to the House of Representatives on Thursday. There, the House approved a surprise amendment late Thursday -- while not yet approving the bill in its entirety -- to keep 10 percent statewide, but to only offer those in the top 8 percent admission to the University of Texas at Austin, The Dallas Morning News reported.

The Global Campus of the University of Illinois, an online program that has been controversial with faculty members, has had sufficiently disappointing enrollment numbers that the university's board this week approved major revisions in the program. But the Chicago Tribune reported that those disappointments didn't hurt leaders of the campus financially and that 10 staff members received bonus payments of 7 to 9 percent of their salaries during the program's first year. The payments ranged from $6,732 to $19,040.

Mary Easley has no intention of quitting her job at North Carolina State University, even if state leaders want her to go, her lawyer said Thursday. The Raleigh News & Observer reported that Easley's lawyer read from glowing peformance reviews (some from those now asking her to resign) and described her work organizing events and programs at the university. Her lawyer said she had done nothing wrong and wanted to go on serving the university. Easley is the wife of the former governor and her appointment (by a provost who has since resigned after reports that he was promoted to provost after helping Easley get her job) has become a political mess for the university.

It's not just U.S. News. Rankings of various types are having an impact on higher education all over the world. A new report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy examines the impact of these rankings, with a focus on four countries: Australia, Canada, Germany and Japan

The New America Foundation and the Center for Social Development, a unit of Washington University in St. Louis, on Thursday announced a joint effort to study "529" plans, with a specific goal of making them more attractive to low-income families. The plans are state-sponsored programs for families to save for their children's college educations. Participants receive a variety of tax breaks, but the new effort is prompted by data showing that low-income families, who might gain the most, are less likely to participate.