Tuition

The president of Mexico's National Autonomous University, which has been shut down by a student strike for almost seven months, submitted his resignation Friday, local media reported. In April, Francisco Barnes de Castro pushed through the university's first tuition increase in 50 years, prompting students to strike. The increase raised tuition from the equivalent of a few cents to about $140 annually.

Hundreds of Israeli university students clashed with police outside the Finance Ministry on Wednesday in a protest over tuition fees. Seven students were detained and one was injured. Israeli students, who pay tuition of $1,300, want the charges cut to $800. The Treasury wants an increase to $1,400, and the universities are asking for at least $2,200.

Julia and Danielle Delgado, the Santa Ana twins who had to work their way through high school, now have their tuition to Mater Dei High School paid in full, plus a small college fund started.

Officials at Miami University of Ohio in Oxford are proposing scrapping the public university's reduced in-state tuition and charging the same amount to both residents and out-of-state students. The change would more than double the current in-state tuition, from $7,600 to $16,300. Ohio residents would be offered scholarships to offset the higher cost. Low-income families would be eligible for additional aid. The university has about 15,000 undergraduate students.

A bill to reduce parents' fears about skyrocketing college tuition costs by allowing them to pre-purchase a college education for their child at a California public university at today's prices was narrowly approved by the Assembly on Tuesday. A 42-27 vote--one more than the required 41-vote simple majority--sent the measure by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) to the Senate, where it appears to have a strong chance of passage.

Over the lone dissent of Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, California State University trustees approved raises Wednesday for Chancellor Barry Munitz and 22 other top university executives and a 10% increase in student tuition for next fall, a Cal State spokeswoman said. The pay package will boost Munitz's annual salary 8.6%, to $190,008. It was his first raise in four years, and he pledged to donate most of it to a scholarship fund.

In-state tuition at four-year public colleges for the 2007-08 school year was up 6.6%, a faster increase than last year, according to the College Board's annual survey of higher-education expenses released Monday. Average total in-state charges -- including tuition, room and board and other costs -- for public colleges rose to $13,589 a year. At private colleges, they rose to $32,307, said the board, a nonprofit research group.

The Justice Department is investigating financial practices at up to 20 prestigious colleges and universities, apparently to determine if they have violated antitrust laws in setting tuition and financial aid packages.

It looks like tuition. It fits the definition of tuition. And to the university students or their families who pay it, it certainly feels like tuition. Yet the state of California steadfastly refuses to use the dreaded "T" word to describe the thousands of dollars it charges residents to attend University of California or the California State University campuses. By law, these charges are merely "fees." This may seem like a silly little word game, but it is not.

Israeli Arab university students boycotted classes, and hundreds of their Jewish peers protested Monday in several cities over what they termed a blatantly discriminatory government decision to charge a 50% tuition premium to students who are not veterans of the armed forces. Although the move could affect thousands of Jewish students, it is considered a particular hardship on about 4,000 Arab students who are exempt from compulsory military service on security grounds.