Today's News

Four years after promising to improve its oversight of the federal student-loan program, the U.S. Department of Education has received another failing grade from its inspector general.

The rate at which borrowers default on their federally guaranteed student loans has declined to 4.6 percent, in part because of a record number of consolidations, the Education Department announced on Monday.

Articles

Early in the process, presidential candidates are hearing urgent calls to improve the quality of American higher education.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Mitt Romney. (Photographs by Katie Orlinsky, SIPA Press; Robert Cohen, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MCT; Dave Kaup, Reuters; and Jim Ruymen, UPI)

• ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS: Leaders of business and higher education will tell the new president of their concerns about America's ability to compete with other nations.
• HOW TO PAY FOR COLLEGE: With the cost of college rising, the candidates, especially Democrats, propose ways to make it more affordable.
• WHO GETS TO ENROLL? Tensions over access to college for all economic classes, as well as for illegal immigrants, will be an issue for the next president.

In response to concerns about the USA Patriot Act, colleges in Canada are preventing faculty members from taking laptops holding research data to the United States.

In Brief

BORROWING MORE TROUBLE: A second report from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy shows how convoluted the arrangements between colleges and student-aid lenders can be.

CUTS ON THE TABLE: Congress was expected last week to pass a compromise bill that would slash subsidies to lenders in the government's guaranteed-student-loan program and use the savings to reduce the federal deficit and increase student aid.

PORK ON THE PLATE: Despite promises to do so, Congress has not yet tightened the belt on earmarked projects, a study has found.

PROBLEMS IN THE LAB: Federal officials say Texas A&M University at College Station, having violated a dozen safety and security rules for research on dangerous microbes, will remain barred from conducting such studies until the problems are fixed.

NOT QUITE PREPARED: High-school exit exams have a major impact on how students are taught but do not appear to indicate college readiness, a report says.

IN THE STATES: A roundup of higher-education news.