Quick Takes

SAN ANTONIO -- Most of the attention surrounding the Obama administration's plan to restructure the federal financial aid programs focuses on the fate of the guaranteed student loan program, but equally interesting -- and perhaps more significant in the long term -- is the Education Department's vision of an altered Perkins Loan Program, about which administration officials offered a few more details during sessions at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators here Monday. The Perkins proposal is noteworthy because department officials say they would use the billions of dollars they plan to allocate to colleges in "loan authority" to encourage them to pursue policies the administration favors, like graduating low-income students, limiting tuition increases, and providing need-based aid to students. Dan Madzelan, who is acting as assistant secretary of postsecondary education, said that the department was still developing the exact measures it would use to achieve those goals. But he said that after making whole the colleges that now receive about $1.5 billion in Perkins loan funds, the department could distribute the remaining $4.5 billion in lending authority to institutions based on the extent to which they (1) graduate Pell Grant recipients, (2) keep their published tuition below the average or median for their sector (public two-year, private four-year, etc.), and (3) award non-federal need-based aid to their students. "When we're thinking about the kinds of incentives we can provide, money's a pretty good one," Madzelan said.

Two former University of Illionois presidents, together with two former chancellors, have called for changes in the way trustees are appointed (so that the governor's power might be reduced) and for changes in the make-up of the current board, The News-Gazette reported. The letter said that too many of the current trustees -- who have been implicated in a scandal involving admissions preferences for the politically connected -- have "pursued personal interests and saw themselves accountable only to the governor." The former presidents and chancellors said that they wanted to draw attention to the fact that under previous trustees, there had not been similar preferences demanded or granted. Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune reported on testimony to a state panel investigating the admissions scandal that at least one trustee contacted university officials to make sure his relative got into the classes he wanted at the university.

Canada's University of Ottawa has acknowledged that 600 applicants to its law school were never considered for admission this year when their applications were overlooked, CBC News reported. Officials blamed the situation on human error. The applications will be reviewed now, and the university will offer admission to anyone who would have been admitted had they been reviewed at the standard time.

Kennesaw State University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of North Florida and Utah Valley University have been granted full membership in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. These institutions were already working toward membership when the Division I Board of Directors approved a moratorium on new members in August 2007 and were allowed to continue onward in the process. The moratorium will expire in August 2011, at which point the Board of Directors plans to introduce new, tougher criteria for joining the division. Since the passage of the moratorium, athletic directors and presidents have expressed concern at the division’s ballooning membership, arguing that, with so many conferences, it may soon reach the point at which there would not be enough automatic bids to provide equal access to major championships. On the academic side, some argue that the division’s newest members, generally smaller and less wealthy than long-standing members, might not have the financial resources to guarantee that their students are performing at their best in the classroom as well as on the playing field.

Rutgers University's board will vote today to restore a luxury recruiting center -- with a full supply of plasma televisions -- after donors gave $5 million after the expense was cut from a $102 million renovation of the football stadium, The Star-Ledger reported. The funds were cut amid complaints about cost overruns on the stadium, at a time that the economic woes of New Jersey were forcing major cuts in other sports, not to mention academics at the university, and many faculty members were complaining about excess spending on football. A spokesman for a group opposing the elimination of sports besides football issued a statement: "What's more important: the reinstatement of the best and the brightst student athletes, or a recruiting lounge?"