Florida

Guaranteed transfer program has more than 35,000 community college students in line to enroll at U. of Central Florida; program seen as alternative to two-year colleges' offering their own bachelor's degrees.

Colleges in New York City and Miami rush to provide counseling and other services to large populations of students affected by last week’s earthquake.

Florida's Edison State College plans to create a private university to meet the needs of graduates who, its leaders say, are not being served by local four-year institutions.

Puerto Rico’s Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez attracted thousands of adult students to an accelerated degree program, AHORA, by stressing the kind of flexibility and practicality that one would expect from a program called “now.”

But when administrators and faculty started considering how to expand into the continental United States they realized it wouldn’t work to simply shift their program a few hundred miles north.

Six states that are trying to revamp remedial education are focusing as much on what happens outside of the classroom – in state policies – as inside. Among the targets for change are state funding formulas and individual course rules.

You can run, but you can't hide.

In an age where every penny counts, some universities are pulling out all the stops to collect parking ticket debts. Colleges are deploying a full arsenal of weapons, including the use of high-tech equipment to scan parking lots for violators, and the enlistment of collection agencies to hunt down deadbeats.

Anastasia Megan, a 13-year-old Florida girl who has nearly completed her high-school curriculum via homeschooling, tried to take dual-enrollment courses at Lake-Sumter Community College last year. She was denied entry, however, by administrators who thought she was not ready to sit alongside older students in the classroom. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is now investigating whether the decision violated anti-bias law – raising an issue that comes up at other community colleges as well.

When the first community colleges sought permission to offer four-year degrees, they generally said that it would only be one or two programs — nothing dramatic. But in Florida, where the community college baccalaureate movement is strongest, community colleges now offer more than 100 four-year degrees, and the figure could be about to jump significantly.

U. of Florida considers giving incoming students option of taking classes during spring and summer terms only — throughout their time at the university.

A conflict between the board and president at Daytona State College, in Florida, has caught the attention of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Now, after a faculty member complained that the board is overstepping its bounds and interfering with the college’s daily operations, the accreditor wants answers from the sparring parties.