State policy

Colleges need to accept that the "social compact" between higher education and government that led to a century of growth for American higher education is dead and will not return, Larry R. Faulkner said Sunday.

Faulkner, president of the University of Texas at Austin, delivered that message to hundreds of college presidents gathered in Washington for the annual meeting of the American Council on Education. Bemoaning the death of the compact is not of itself earth-shattering -- academics have been complaining along those lines for some time.

State efforts to eliminate affirmative action may focus on race, but they can also destroy programs for female students, says a new report.

A for-profit group in Oregon and Washington State -- facing several investigations -- shut  down suddenly at the end of last week.

A study in Iowa suggests that low-income students take less financial aid than they need. Wealthier students, though, take more.

After a week of lobbying failed to win over skeptical lawmakers, the University of Maine System on Friday postponed a plan to fold the University of Maine at Augusta into the University of Southern Maine. In exchange, the merger's leading opponents in the legislature said they would let the system carry out the rest of its strategic plan.

The budget unveiled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Monday pleased California's universities but left community colleges a little short.

Two universities work together to try to save a doctoral degree in audiology that one of them abandoned as a money loser.

Minnesota's governor wants his state to copy a Colorado college financing system that hasn't begun, let alone been proven to work.

4 Va. institutions seek state immunity protection as estate of bankrupt bookstore chain seeks to recoup funds.

Higher education leaders plan a three-year, national campaign to shift attitudes and build support.