A court case involving two University of Texas applicants who believe they were denied admission because they're white threatens to reinvigorate an ideological skirmish that peaked in the late 1990s. The first lawsuit of its kind brought against a university since a pair of landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 2003, Fisher v. Texas has observers everywhere wondering if the state's troubled history with race-based admissions makes it the ideal incubator for the next round of affirmative action battles.

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Private, for-profit colleges, which offer professional certificates at a steep cost, have come under fire for peddling big student loans to vulnerable Texans in exchange for credentials of dubious value.

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The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously this morning to rename an all-male dorm Creekside Residence Hall after weeks of debate about the man the building was originally named for: William Stewart Simkins, a dead UT law professor and Ku Klux Klan organizer.

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What do college students and preschoolers have in common?

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The Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine — essentially a high-level mouse lab that has been a tangential topic in the race for governor — just won a grant that could quiet its detractors.

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At Texas State University, one 30-minute workout can generate enough electricity to power a laptop for three hours. Watch as the director of campus recreation explains how elliptical machines and treadmills are harnessed into alternative energy.  Full Story

A previously rejected proposal that would give TEXAS Grants to college students based on academic merit, rather than on a first-come, first-served basis, saw the light again on Wednesday — but old tensions still linger about who should get a piece of the nearly $615 million financial aid pie first.

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On its website, the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research promises an education that is "Biblical. Accurate. Certain."  But there's one thing they can't promise: a master's degree in science education.

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In 2000, higher education in Texas languished compared to other states, and a plan was adopted to “close the gaps” by 2015. A decade later, the commissioner of higher education tells the Tribune that bold steps still need to be taken. But can we afford to take them?

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Now that the central question of tomorrow’s House Higher Ed Committee meeting on athletic conference realignments has been answered, Chairman Dan Branch says there's no need for the show to go on.

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Shopping for a new athletic conference? Make sure the political alignment matches up with the school alignment.

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Ramsey on what the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll says about the governor's race, education, immigration, and other issues; Grissom on a far West Texas county divided over Arizona's immigration law; Ramshaw talks health care reform and obesity in Texas with a legendary Dallas doctor; M. Smith on the Collin County community that's about to break ground on a $60 million high school football stadium; Aguilar on the backlog of cases in the federal immigration detention system; Philpott of the Green Party's plans to get back on the ballot; Hu on the latest in the Division of Workers' Comp contretemps; Mulvaney on the punishing process of getting compensated for time spent in jail when you didn't commit a crime; Hamilton on the fight over higher ed formula funding; and my sit-down with state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin: The best of our best from May 24-28, 2010.

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More than two-thirds of Texans say their confidence in the state's public schools ranges from shaky to nonexistent, according to the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. A majority of Texans believe that crime, low academic standards, lack of parental involvement and not enough funding are "major" problems that public schools face — but two-thirds say "too much religion in the schools" is not a problem.

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The top professors and administrators at Texas universities routinely earn between to $250,000 and $500,000 year, while presidents and chancellors earn up to $900,000, according to salary data for more than a dozen universities and university systems added today to the Tribune's public employee salary database. Some 57 employees at the University of Texas make more than $250,000; by contrast, only 13 employees at Texas Tech make that much.

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Would you turn all of your family's assets, its health and safety and future, or those of your friends and neighbors, over to an unknown university student, even one carefully selected? Of course not.

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It took decades to get Texas lawmakers to allow students to sit on each university system's board of regents — and only on the condition that they can't vote. But most other states with student regents do grant voting privileges.

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Every Friday since a blast at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 miners, graduate students at UT's LBJ School of Public Affairs have been treated to an insider briefing. The name of their course is Managing Crises, and their professor, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, is dealing with a big one.

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For a one-time-only performance that would have been under an hour, the saga of Tarleton State University’s “gay Jesus” play sure has been a long one. In the latest plot twist, a Tarleton State journalism student has uncovered a conservative activist's allegation that Gov. Rick Perry and his chief of staff were somehow involved.

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