Higher Education Quick Takes

California veterans will be eligible for up to… $0 to cover their tuition under the new GI Bill. The figure, recently updated, is a striking reflection of the frustration many have had with the separation of tuition from fees in the process of calculating veterans’ educational benefits. The maximum benefits payable to veterans vary (pretty dramatically) by state, and are based on the highest resident, undergraduate public tuition and fees (respectively) charged in a state. But, as the Department of Veterans Affairs chart points out, California public colleges don’t charge resident undergraduate tuition. In lieu of tuition, they charge fees, and California veterans are in fact eligible to have up to $6,586.54 in fees covered per term under the new GI Bill. All of this is semantics (tuition versus fees) for veterans enrolled in undergraduate programs at public colleges, but for veterans hoping to apply their benefits to private colleges in California, the distinction being made here between tuition and fees matters. It means they’ll be able to apply $0 toward the tuition portion of a private college bill, and up to $6,586.54 toward the fee portion (and of course most private colleges heavily weight their costs on the tuition side of the ledger). It also means that private colleges in California may be less likely to enter into a federal matching program, the Yellow Ribbon Program, to cover the balance between what the standard veterans’ benefit covers and what private colleges charge. “Ultimately the fees in California work like tuition and the veterans administration ought to understand that,” said Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. “We actively encouraged a lot of our institutions who have skill in this area to apply to the Yellow Ribbon Program and to participate actively but I think what a lot of them are going to do is politely write back to the veterans department and say, 'Gee we’re sorry but times are very tight financially and you’ve put us in an unreasonable situation. And we’re sorry.' ” The new GI Bill goes into effect in August.

Providence College has denied student groups permission to have Tom Tancredo, a former member of Congress who is an outspoken proponent of tough enforcement of immigration laws, speak on campus, The Providence Journal reported. A spokeswoman for the college noted that the request came late, and that one of the requests came from a group -- Youth for Western Civilization -- that is not recognized by the college. (The group has started to appear, with some controversy, at campuses this year.) The spokeswoman also said that Tancredo's views conflicted with those of the Roman Catholic Church, with which the college is affiliated. The spokeswoman said that if a request for Tancredo to speak were to come, in a timely way, in the future, the college would try to arrange for multiple perspectives on immigration to be heard at the same time. Tancredo is still headed to Rhode Island, but will speak off campus.

Part of the Bologna Process involves the standardization of three-year undergraduate degrees across Europe -- prompting debates in the United States about how three-year degrees should be viewed in graduate admissions. A new survey of U.S. graduate schools by the Institute of International Education finds that 53 percent of respondents have official graduate admissions policies regarding three-year, "Bologna-compliant" degrees, while 47 percent do not. Among those institutions that do have policies, 33 percent view them as equivalent to U.S. undergraduate degrees, 14 percent say they're not equivalent, 35 percent say the determination varies by department or field, and 18 percent say "other" (with most of those saying "other" explaining that faculty usually make the determination on a case-by-case basis).

The University of Oregon's oversight board for club sports has ended the Ultimate Frisbee team's season -- although the squad was a leading contender for a national championship -- following complaints that team members played in the nude in a recent match against Oregon State University, The Eugene Register-Guard reported. Officials noted that the team had previously been involved in drinking incidents and had received speeding tickets. Team leaders didn't deny the various infractions, but requested that they be viewed in context. The Register-Guard reported that Dusty Becker, a co-captain, told the board: "Speeding, drinking, nudity — they’re not bad things... They’re things a big portion of the community doesn’t think are wrong.”