The latest higher education news from The Texas Tribune.
With two-thirds now over, it’s time to check in on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s 10-years old, 15-year initiative to close the gaps between Texas and other states in student achievement in higher education. Full Story
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How can Texas rank last in the nation — 51st — in the percentage of adults with high school diplomas, and simultaneously rank 22nd in the percentage attending at least some college? Full Story
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Ramshaw's question about an insurance company denying coverage for an infant vaccine prompts a reversal; Stiles' new app lets you poke through mid-year campaign reports on donations and spending; Ramsey finds foreshadowing of the state's big fall races in the campaign finance reports; Aguilar interviews Henry Cisneros about current politics; Dawson finds Texas environmentalists getting advice from an unexpected place; Galbraith on "demand response" that might cut the need for power plants and on the next wave of electric cars; Aguilar on increasing trade through Texas ports of entry; M. Smith on affirmative action battles in higher education; Titus on Mexican college students' drift from border universities to UT-Austin and Texas A&M; and Hamilton on controversy over private, for-profit colleges: The best of our best for the week of July 19 to 23, 2010. Full Story
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A group of environmental advocates is planning a protest on the UT campus tomorrow afternoon to express their displeasure with new tower-shaped plastic bottles. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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Grissom's three-part series (here, here and here) on prosperity and peril along the U.S.-Mexico border, Hu on the Division of Workers' Compensation audit report, Stiles puts more than 3,000 personal disclosure forms filed by politicians, candidates and state officials online, M. Smith on attempts to curb the practice of barratry (better known as ambulance chasing), Ramsey interviews the chair of the Texas Libertarian Party, Hamilton on attempts to improve the success rates of community colleges, Galbraith on whether electric deregulation has helped or hurt Texans, Aguilar talks to a chronicler of the bloody narco-wars and Ramshaw on doctors who most often prescribe antipsychotic drugs to the state's neediest patients: The best of our best from July 12 to 16, 2010. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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The University of Texas once admired Ku Klux Klan organizer and law professor William Stewart Simkins. Today the UT System's regents meet to consider whether the tree-shaded all-male residence on San Jacinto Boulevard that bears his name still should. Full Story
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What do college students and preschoolers have in common? Full Story
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The majority of students who enroll in community colleges never make it out with a credential. Some Texas schools are turning to Achieving the Dream, a national initiative that requires them to own up to their problems and improve those success rates. Full Story
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More than 120 college students worked 12,300 hours-plus on Innocence Project of Texas cases from 2007 to 2009, according to the Task Force on Indigent Defense. As student participation has increased, so have exonerations. Full Story
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University of Texas President Bill Powers has decided it's time to rid the campus of a name that is a reminder of white hoods and racist atrocities: Ku Klux Klan leader William Stewart Simkins. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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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
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The latest victim of the budget crunch at the University of Texas at Austin? Employee raises. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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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. Full Story
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Are Texas medical schools missing a social conscience? Many fare poorly in a new study that ranks them based on their contributions to meeting the nation’s health care needs. Full Story
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One advocate says he feels "numb" at the thought of the state's community colleges slashing another 10 percent from their budgets at a time of record enrollment growth. Cuts in spending on facilities and equipment are likely coming, as KUT's Nathan Bernier reports. Full Story
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