Reports and analyzes a decision of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that Mississippi's five predominantly white public universities continue to close themselves off to black students by their financial aid policies. Notes that the Court did not order changes in the state's public institutions' admissions policies as desired by the…

Molly Corbett Broad, president of the University of North Carolina system and an economist by training, was brought in by the state treasurer to help convince the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) to open a branch in North Carolina. The experience illustrates the kind of leadership Broad has…

Georgia's merit-based HOPE scholarships, which cover tuition and fees for over half the undergraduates at the University of Georgia, are credited for bringing better students to the university but also for bringing pressure for grade inflation to the institution. Recipients must maintain a B grade average. The university has become competitive…

Eleven Georgia residents, seven white and four black, filed a class-action suit against the university system charging that racial segregation persists in the 19 universities because of such policies as affirmative action. The litigation is significant in linking affirmative action and desegregation. Plaintiffs claim that because three…

David L. Boren, former governor and Senator, has become the most powerful president in the University of Oklahoma's history. Boren wants to give the university the feel of a small private college. His stature gives him flexibility to act decisively and quickly. However, some faculty feel his priorities are wrong and others feel he's moving too…

Pennsylvania State University will turn 14 of its two-year campuses into four-year colleges, changing the face of higher education in the state and raising concerns for competing institutions. Three campuses will retain two-year status. The change is due to overcrowding at the University Park flagship campus, and because too few two-year campus…

The University of California's governing board has agreed to accept the top 4% of graduates from each high school in the state, the most significant expansion of the system's entrance criteria in two decades. The new policy will yield about 3,600 additional eligible students and improve racial/ethnic diversity, which is welcome after a ban on…

The ten-campus University of Hawaii system is experiencing a 15% cut in state funding since 1995, tuition rates rising 70% by 1997-98, sharply declining enrollment, rising deferred maintenance, and loss of 900 teaching and staff positions. An ambitious long-term plan aims to turn the system into the leading center of higher learning in the Asian…

The decision of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to stop giving significant admissions preference to minority students sparked student protests and debate about universities' promises of affirmative action. Constitutional scholars and higher-education officials found the university's numerical goals for admissions legally risky, so the…

Public university officials in Louisiana and Mississippi are treading a narrow line between conflicting directives on affirmative action. In U.S. vs. Louisiana, court orders permit use of affirmative action in admissions for desegregation purposes, but in Hopwood vs. Texas, Louisiana campuses are barred from using affirmative action in admissions…

The Kentucky governor's plan to remove the state's 14 community colleges from the control of the University of Kentucky and create a new system to administer technical and community colleges has created rancor in the university's community. Many business leaders and presidents of the seven other state universities have endorsed the governor's…