Explores how U.S. higher education's number one position over the last century is threatened as institutions struggle to deal with rising expectations from students and employers, which are producing chronic fiscal problems feared to be eroding the quality of teaching and research. (EV)

Graduate schools require federal support if they are to produce the new knowledge and trained intelligence necessary to the security, prosperity, and cultural life of the nation. Recommendations of the National Commission on Student Financial Assistance are discussed. (MLW)

Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley operate in a spirit of cooperation that is unique for a public and a private university. Cuts in either research or student aid could seriously harm both institutions. (MLW)

College assessment systems, suggest New Jersey's governor, must be built from two sides to have integrity: a common core of statewide information about college performance defined by public bodies and boards, and institutional mission-related information defined by college presidents, faculty, and trustees. (MLW)

Tennessee's higher education funding based on institutional performance is discussed by three key participant-observers of the state's initiatives: Steve Cobb, Arliss Roaden, and John Folger. Money for remedial education was taken out of university budgets and put in special college preparatory institutes. These institutes are discussed. (MLW)

The Higher Education Research Program, 19 educational practitioners invited by The Pew Charitable Trusts to help take stock of higher education's strengths and weaknesses, its challenges and opportunities, is discussed. Three principal issues facing higher education include costs, the quality of teaching and learning, and making higher education…

Although many states have been moving toward central boards, the opposite is true in Florida. The reasons why Florida's ten regents have come under attack from legislators are outlined, and a feud between the governor and the legislature over building a quality higher education system is discussed. (MLW)

Some thoughts on higher education in the 1980s are presented. The commitments made to higher education by Congress have included: education accessible to those likely to be excluded either by economic or physical disadvantage, research, support of institutions of culture, and strengthening of international studies. (MLW)

Borrowing has become the indispensable means for financing higher education, primarily through the Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) program. The entire structure of expectations that sustains higher education has been transformed by debt, and incentives for borrowers and lenders have created student debt expansion. (MLW)

David Breneman's "The Coming Enrollment Crisis: What Every Trustee Must Know" is discussed by Wharton, L. Edward Allemand, Barbara S. Uehling, Irving J. Spitzberg, Jr., Oscar E. Remick, Thomas V. Litzenburg, Jr., and John W. Pocock. Implications for reversals of social and political policy, student retention, developing compensatory…