Higher education must tell legislatures how the state should raise the money the colleges want to spend--even if it means higher taxes--and then lobby on behalf of those proposals. This also means addressing new and potentially controversial issues about the role of colleges in state politics. (MLW)

Two-year colleges are trying to change legislators' perceptions about their institutions, demanding increased state support, and working together to lobby as a state system rather than as individual institutions. (MSE)

In a period of rapid enrollment growth, cities in which University of California campuses reside are waging a noisy campaign to demand an end to campus expansion, either by adding a campus or keeping enrollments down. The university remains committed to offering a place to all qualifying students. (MSE)

Many campus administrators in Alabama also serve in the state legislature, participating in debates and votes affecting their institutions. The potential for conflicts of interest has damaged state policy on higher education. Some recent incidents are described. (MLW)

The new chancellors of the Maine, Massachusetts, and West Virginia state higher education systems use different styles to tackle highly political jobs that frustrated their predecessors. (MSE)

A special committee studying possible changes in Texas higher education is considering a variety of politically troubling alternatives including institutional reclassifications, faculty salary and tenure changes, funding alternatives, restructured governance, and mergers and closings. (MSE)

At the National Governors' Association annual meeting, the governors outlined a range of actions that state officials could take to promote increased activity in international education. Their primary motivation was improving the economy. The "global education" controversy is discussed. (MLW)

Incidents in the 1986 election year have called into question the appropriate role of senior administrators and trustees of public universities who want to participate in state political campaigns and the balance of personal rights to involvement with the need to preserve their institutions' independence. (MSE)

The Chancellor of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and the new governor are in conflict over proposals for budget-cutting in the declining state economy and over payments received by the chancellor after leaving a college presidency. (MSE)