Higher Education Quick Takes

State officials in Pennsylvania are preparing to sue the National Collegiate Athletic Association, perhaps as early as today, over the sanctions imposed on Pennsylvania State University, Sports Illustrated reported. Penn State -- which has accepted the association's penalties -- is not involved in preparing the suit. While many supporters of Penn State have said that the NCAA went too far and may not have had the authority to punish the institution, university officials have defended their stance of accepting the punishments by saying that the NCAA might otherwise have imposed harsher punishments known as the "death penalty."

Many of the details on a possible deal between the White House and Congress to avert the looming "fiscal cliff" are still unclear -- including, most crucially for higher education, what (if any) spending cuts would be included. But a possible agreement on taxes, reportedly reached today between Vice President Joe Biden and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, would extend the American Opportunity Tax Credit for college tuition for five years.

The tax credit, originally included in the 2009 stimulus bill, provides up to $2,500, of which $1,000 is refundable. It was scheduled to expire this week without Congressional action.

If a deal is not reached to avert the tax increases, many domestic discretionary programs — including some important to higher education — will see an 8.2 percent cut in 2013. In a statement Monday afternoon, President Obama said the future of the spending cuts remains unresolved, but said he would insist on a balanced approach to avert the across-the-board cuts.

Bowl attendance is dropping, according to an analysis released Sunday by USA Today. Through this year's first 19 bowl games, attendance is down by an average of 3,138, and six games have seen drops of at least 5,000. The article said that as bowls proliferate and some teams seem to be playing a bowl game every year, fans are unwilling to spend what it costs to travel to a second-tier bowl to root for a team that had an off year (but still won a bowl bid). Last week's Military Bowl, in Washington, had attendance of 17,835 -- the lowest for any bowl game since USA Today started tracking bowl attendance in 2004-5.

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday gave a speech calling for better standards and an enhanced private-sector role in higher education, Outlook India reported.

Mukherjee said that while ancient India had universities that were considered world leaders, many Indians today feel that they must leave the country to obtain the best possible higher education. He said that the country's top universities need to be able to compete in the top levels of international rankings, where their absence is the subject of much discussion in the country. "We must change the reality of our universities not figuring in the list of top universities of the world. Indian universities should aim at becoming top educational institutions in the world with global standards of research, teaching and learning," he said.

Further, he said that the country need more than its public universities. "It is important that the private sector also contributes its best to the provision of higher education in India," he said. "The private sector has played a key role in higher education in other countries across the world. Many top universities including Harvard, Yale and Stanford are the result of efforts of the private sector. There is no reason why Indian private sector cannot achieve similar results."