Enrollment

To the relief of families who dread annual tuition increases, a growing number of public and private colleges are moving to freeze those bills so that students pay the same amount in their freshman through senior years. The idea is to give students and parents some financial stability at a time of other economic worries and mounting student debt. The predictability pleases Joshua Deal, 19, of San Diego. He is a junior at Northern Arizona University, one of the estimated 40 schools in the nation that offer such guarantees.

Josh Saunders was back at work for the first time in two months Sunday. And even though he's never publicly explained where he's been or why exactly he went there, the Galaxy were clearly glad to have their starting goalkeeper back. The team hadn't won since late April, when Saunders enrolled in Major League Soccer's substance abuse and behavioral health program to be treated for an undisclosed condition at an undisclosed location. And the team hadn't shut out an opponent since Saunders blanked the Houston Dynamo in last November's MLS Cup final.

WASHINGTON - President Obama's healthcare law helped as many as 6.6 million young adults stay on or get on their parents' health plans in the first year and a half after the law was signed, a new survey indicates. That number, found in the survey by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund, is far higher than earlier estimates. And at a time when public wariness about the Affordable Care Act remains high, it underscores the popularity of a provision that requires insurers to allow parents to enroll their children up to age 26 on their own plans.

Their pitches were simple and tailored to the audience. Come to my college, the out-of-state recruiters recently told high school students in Lakewood, and you will be taught in small classes and you'll graduate in four years. We'll even throw in a few thousand dollars just for being from California. And at one school, you won't even be far from an In-N-Out Burger. Their attempt at wooing California high schoolers was a not-so-subtle move in a state whose public universities have been hit with severe budget cuts -- $1.6 billion in 10 years -- leading to tuition hikes, enrollment caps and fewer courses.

California's new health insurance exchange awarded a contract worth nearly $360 million to create a website and enrollment system to help Californians shop for health coverage and determine whether they are eligible for subsidies under the federal healthcare law starting late next year. The California Health Benefit Exchange said it would start enrollment Oct. 1, 2013, for coverage that would take effect in January 2014. The exchange said it planned to pay a unit of Accenture, a Dublin, Ireland-based consulting firm, $183 million to build the system plus $176 million for operations and development over the next four years.

JERUSALEM — Israeli medical student Mohammad Hijazi seems the ideal candidate to alleviate the country's looming doctor shortage. He graduated first in his high school class, scored in the top 5% of Israel's version of the SAT and rounded out his resume by founding a grass-roots organization that encourages blood donation. Yet for the four years he applied to all five of Israel's medical schools, Hijazi was repeatedly rejected. Officials told him he kept failing the pre-admission personality interview, but the 25-year-old Arab Israeli suspects another reason: He believes that recent changes in the enrollment process are designed to discourage non-Jewish applicants.

Galaxy goalkeeper Josh Saunders, who left the team a month ago to enroll in Major League Soccer's substance abuse and behavioral health program, was back on the training field Tuesday. But it's unclear how long it will be before he can play again. Saunders, who held the Houston Dynamo scoreless in last November's MLS Cup final, said he was not being treated for drug or alcohol abuse, attributing his absence to personal issues. "I was under some stress," said Saunders, 31, who started this season as a starting keeper for the first time in his eight-year MLS career.

Re "Fewer in state enter CSU, UC campuses," May 10 When I started teaching high school in California 30 years ago, I thought my students had it pretty good. Now I feel sorry for students. They're pushed and tested, spending days of the high school year taking so many exams, most of which have no significance for them personally. They're cajoled and threatened that they must go to college, even if it means taking on big debt. And now we're refusing to accommodate our own California residents, increasingly favoring out-of-state students because they pay more.

The number of eligible California high school graduates entering the state's public four-year universities has plunged in the last five years, as budget-strapped institutions increasingly adopt practices to reduce enrollment, a new study has found. At University of California and California State University campuses, enrollment rates dropped by one-fifth, to fewer than 18% of all state high school graduates in 2010, from about 22% in 2007. The report, released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that these declines have occurred even as demand has risen: The number of high school graduates in California reached an all-time high of 405,000 in 2010; the number of seniors who completed college admission requirements increased dramatically, as did the number of students taking and passing Advanced Placement exams.