Colleges

A state appellate court has ruled that a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a California law granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants can move forward. A group of out-of-state students and parents filed a lawsuit in 2005 in Yolo County Superior Court against California's public university and community college systems, alleging that they were being charged higher tuition and fees than undocumented immigrants.

More than one-third of U.S. parents have decreased or stopped saving for their children's college education because of the economic decline, according to a survey by Fidelity Investments. Rising daily household expenses and a decline in home equity mean that parents can afford to pay only 21% of future college expenses, compared with 24% a year earlier, based on the survey of about 3,000 adults released Wednesday.

An investment fund that serves about 1,000 colleges and private schools partially froze withdrawals this week amid the credit crunch, forcing colleges to develop new plans to pay bills. Wachovia Bank, trustee for the $9.3-billion Short Term Fund offered by Commonfund, said Monday that it was terminating the fund and establishing a process to ensure the orderly liquidation and distribution of the fund's assets.

What can we learn about our political stars from impressions they made in college? Sen. John McCain is remembered as a passionate contrarian who won the hearts of his classmates at the Naval Academy. Sen. Barack Obama, who attended Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School, is remembered as a daunting scholar and calming influence. Sen. Joe Biden, who had a brush with plagiarism at Syracuse University College of Law, is remembered fondly by professors who found him charming.

The first e-mail to alumni was encouraging: Syracuse University would be cutting costs but remained "solidly positioned" to weather the financial downturn, college president Nancy Cantor said in mid-November. In fact, a $1-billion college campaign was on track, with $600 million raised and $200 million earmarked for scholarships, she said.

THIS is a tale of two de-accessions, the term used for the disposal of works of art by a public institution, usually through sale. The practice is legitimate but thorny -- legitimate because any institution's leaders, who benefit from public tax subsidy, must be free to make decisions they believe to be in the public interest; and thorny because the public is rarely unanimous in deciding what its interests are. De-accessioning often raises hackles.

Compton fifth-grader Alejandra Guizar has already gone to class at Tufts, Stanford, Emory and Princeton. And it's just by chance that she missed out on Harvard. These are the names of classrooms at Bunche Elementary School in the Compton Unified School District. Naming them after colleges is one small piece of the school's enveloping academic culture that emphasizes achievement and, ultimately, college aspirations.

Spanish Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar refused to deliver a lecture at a Saudi university after visiting female journalists were banned from attending. The Spanish reporters were prevented from entering Al-Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University even though they were wearing the traditional \o7abaya \f7and veil, said Esther Bazan, one of the correspondents from SER radio. Saudi authorities said the university was all-male and women were not allowed.

At least 70 Iraqi college students were killed and more than 170 others wounded Tuesday when a pair of car bombs exploded almost simultaneously at a Shiite-dominated university in the capital, apparently the latest salvo in the civil war between Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite Muslim militants. The first bomb blew up a minivan filled with students leaving Mustansiriya University for the day.

Aided by one of the nation's largest endowments, Princeton University decided to hold tuition steady, something it hasn't done in four decades. Trustees chose to keep tuition at $33,000 for the 2007-08 school year by dipping into its endowment of about $13 billion.