Quick Takes

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives on Wednesday formally introduced legislation to restructure the federal student aid programs and signaled their intention to move with lightning speed to pass it. The Committee on Education and Labor announced that it would take up the $87 billion legislation next Tuesday, and given the strong Democratic majority on the panel, as well as in Congress, passage is assured. The legislation got a strong endorsement Wednesday from the Obama administration, whose student loan proposal the House legislation closely mirrors. On a telephone news conference with Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Education Secretary Arne Duncan offered his "clear support" for the House bill despite some differences with President Obama's original plan, and said it was fully consistent with the administration's plan's "fundamental principles." While the House bill would not make the Pell Grant Program an entitlement, which would be too expensive, Duncan said the measure's plan to use mandatory funds to ensure that the size of the maximum grant keeps pace with inflation plus 1 percent was a "good compromise." Duncan and Miller also both went out of their way -- in discussing the money the House bill would make available to fund President Obama's proposed $12 billion community college initiative -- to emphasize how the legislation would turn up the pressure on colleges to ensure that they are not just admitting students, but getting them to degrees. Discussing community college graduation rates, Miller said that the "statistics are currently not acceptable to the administration or the Congress," and said the legislation was designed to ensure that "community colleges change and adapt to the needs of our society and our families. That test will be on the community colleges."

Colleges, universities and schools are expecting an average decline in gift value of 3.9 percent when the books are closed on the 2008-9 academic year, according to a survey of senior fund raisers being released today by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Looking to 2009-10, those surveyed project a modest increase of 2.5 percent. Over the last 20 years, the average annual rate of growth for giving to education has been 7.1 percent. “The steep decline confirms that we are in uncharted economic territory that may be having an equally uncharted impact on private philanthropy to education,” said John Lippincott, president of CASE.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association requires members colleges to make sure athletes have health insurance before competing. But an analysis in The New York Times noted that the NCAA doesn't specify the quality or extent of insurance coverage, leaving many athletes surprised and angry that they must handle large bills, without assistance, for athletic injuries. The NCAA has coverage that may be used in catastrophic cases, but many injuries exceed levels of student coverage but are short of catastrophic, the Times found. In addition, the article noted that many students are covered by their parents' plans, but that these policies typically exclude injuries from varsity athletics.

Underground animal rights activists issued a statement Wednesday claiming credit for having vandalized the home of researcher at the University of California at Irvine, by spray-painting "KILLER" across his garage door and pouring red paint on three of his cars. The statement said the researcher was being punished for working with animals and that the action was taken so "all his neighbors could see what a cruel, sick person they live near." A spokeswoman for Irvine confirmed the attack, which she said took place Friday, although she said only two cars were covered with red paint. The spokeswoman said that the research maintains a lab at Irvine but teaches elsewhere. She said he does work with animals: rodents.

Tennessee's Court of Appeals rejected claims this week from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum that it can challenge the sale by Fisk University of paintings donated to it by the late artist, the Associated Press reported. Fisk, which has a world class collection donated by O'Keeffe, says that it cannot afford to maintain the collection and needs funds from a sale for central educational functions of the university. Although O'Keeffe specified that the art should stay together, the court ruled that any claim she had on the art ended with her death, and that the museum cannot demand the collection on her behalf.

Assumption College, in Massachusetts, has announced that it is dropping the requirement that applicants submit SAT or ACT scores. College officials said that they acted only after conducting a study of four years of admissions data that found that high school grades were a better predictor of college success than test scores.