Four articles on higher education issues are presented. In "Parental Loans--An Option Paper," Joseph Froomkin considers the rationale for and against public initiatives for parental loan plans, rationales for institutional parental loans, the demand for loans and probable cost to the government, and options/terms for loans. The distribution of benefits and the possibility of leveraging student loans and the federal role in encouraging institutional parental loan plans are addressed. In "Options in the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act," Froomkin considers options for the major reconstruction, consolidation, and reduction of student aid programs, along with options for institutional aid programs. The possibility of consolidating student aid programs is suggested if the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant programs are transferred to the states. In "Statistical Needs to Estimate Demand and Supply of Graduate and Professional Minority Enrollment in Higher Education," Froomkin considers databases that address the supply of minorities with graduate education, the flow of minorities to graduate schools, and the demand for minorities in graduate programs. It is concluded that there is very little existing statistical information that clarifies the occupational distribution of minorities that also considers the discipline of their graduate degrees. There is some information by discipline about the numbers of persons with minority backgrounds with graduate degrees. In "Fine-Tuning the Level of Campus-Based Aid," Froomkin and Richard Andrews consider the following issues: whether aid should be adjusted by the cost of living, whether new statistics should be collected, the need for new data and a better definition of need, and the need for fine-tuning the allocation of aid. (SW)