Not all talk is cheap. Especially not if it comes from the mouths of professors, former corporate executives, or Washington insiders who understand the workings of the $20-billion for-profit higher-education industry and how impending tougher regulations might affect it. Then the talk can be worth hundreds of dollars an hour, thanks to the growing…

A newly compiled analysis by the U.S. Department of Education and obtained by "The Chronicle" shows that 114 private nonprofit degree-granting colleges were in such fragile financial condition at the end of their last fiscal year that they failed the department's financial-responsibility test. Colleges that fail the test are subject to extra…

Effective June 8, 1995, new patent laws resulting from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) will become effective. Some would protect researcher rights to intellectual property. Others may make it harder for institutions to commercialize on faculty and graduate student research due to shortened patent terms. (MSE)

A federal appeals court has revised its opinion in a widely-watched copyright case, indicating that the ruling was not intended to apply to professors or independent scientists, but critics see the revision as even more confusing. The opinion found that copying scholarly journal articles by a corporate scientist did not qualify under the fair-use…

Describes educators' fear that a government proposal to help accommodate new Web-surfing cell phones and other hand-held devices could end up displacing instructional-television operations. The proposal could also undermine partnerships that educational broadcasters have begun negotiating with companies to create new speedy Internet services. (EV)

Despite 1992 federal law, most American colleges receiving gifts from foreign corporations, foundations, and nations have not reported them. Institutions cite ignorance of the law. Some gifts apparently were reported but not cited in the Education Department's registry of foreign gifts. Twenty-eight large foreign gifts, grants, and pledges to…

Critics say federal rules for welfare programs have built-in biases against higher education, and financially pinched states also discourage postsecondary education by welfare recipients for political and economic reasons. Issue revolves around use of the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) Training Program. States differ in their approaches…

Unlike other universities, the University of Arizona is ending a policy of direct commercialization of faculty research, citing new federal rules governing conflict of interest and institutional budget constraints as the reasons. The decision also follows a suit against the university concerning spinoff rights. Critics argue that the university…