Quick Takes: Another Study Calls Profs Liberal, Med School Enrollments Up, Second Koran in Toilet at Pace, Cal State Trustees Cancel Trip, Mass. Aid Plan, Bad Quarter for Phoenix, Career College Chief to Step Down, Progress on European Tech Institute?

You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.

<![CDATA[

Another study based on a survey of college professors has found that they are, on average, much more liberal than Americans on average. The study -- by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research -- also found that most professors are reluctant to share opinions that they view as contradicting those of the majority of their colleagues.
The numbers of applicants to and enrolled students at American medical schools rose in 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges announced Wednesday. A total of 39,109 people applied to medical schools in the United States, an increase of 4.6 percent over the 2005 total of 37,373 and the fourth consecutive yearly increase. The number of first-year students who enrolled rose to 17,370, up 2.2 percent from the previous year and the second annual increase in a row. Twenty-eight of the 125 medical schools in the country reported enrollment growth of at least 5 percent, and nine schools grew by at least 10 percent. AAMC has called for a 30 percent increase in medical school enrollments within a decade.
For the second time this academic year, a Koran has been found in a toilet at Pace University, the Associated Press reported. University officials have condemned the desecration and have been working to prevent such incidents.
The California State University System has abandoned its plan to meet next March at San Diego State University, after the university's faculty balked at the estimated $225,000 price tag for staging the meeting on the campus, the San Diego Union Tribune reported. Faculty members had complained that the money -- an upper-limit estimate for travel, meals and other costs for trustees, campus presidents, and system staffers -- would be better spent on pressing needs at San Diego State.
Massachusetts higher education officials are proposing a plan that would expand aid programs that currently serve low-income students to also cover many middle class students, The Boston Globe reported. The plan would also give students who do not need remedial instruction free tuition at community colleges. The proposals -- for which it is unclear if the state has money -- come at a time that other states are trying to balance aid for the poorest students with the concerns of the middle class.
Shares of the Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, saw their largest losses in eight years, following a release of a report about drops in earnings and enrollment growth, Bloomberg reported. And the company's announcement about its earnings also revealed that the external review it has undertaken to review its policies and procedures for granting historic stock options had uncovered "various deficiencies" thus far, which could require the company to restate its financial projections. Apollo is one of several for-profit higher education companies that are under scrutiny for possible irregularities in the granting of stock options.
The Board of Directors of the Career College Association said Wednesday that the group's president, Nicholas J. Glakas, would step down at year's end. Glakas has been president of the association, which represents for-profit colleges, since 1999.
The European Commission on Wednesday formally unveiled its plan to create the European Institute of Technology, with the explicit goal of being a rival to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other American universities. At the same time, however, reports continue to circulate that business backing has been minimal and that some European countries are skeptical of the plans and their expense.