Providing college students with free textbooks is no easy task. That seems to be the major lesson from several efforts to produce e-books that are low-cost or free to help reduce students' costs. Money pressures, slow adoption by professors, and quality concerns stand in the way as these projects hope to rival traditional publishing. Take Flat…

Higher education pays off handsomely for society. Yet on a nationwide basis, states' support for higher education per full-time-equivalent student has fallen to just $6,290, the lowest in 15 years. A dedicated source of funds for higher education is problematic. But what if state and federal lawmakers applied the impeccable logic of the gas tax to…

Before last year, public colleges in Tennessee had a very good reason to fill classroom seats through the first couple of weeks of the term. Each institution's share of the state appropriations for higher education was largely based on enrollment at that point in the semester. Now, however, those colleges stand to lose state money if students do…

Last year, leading lights in for-profit and nonprofit higher education convened in Washington for a conference on private-sector innovation in the industry. The national conversation about dysfunction and disruption in higher education was just heating up, and panelists from start-ups, banking, government, and education waxed enthusiastic about…

For nearly four years, governors and state legislators have focused on little else in higher education but cutting budgets to deal with historic gaps in revenue. Now, with higher-education support at a 25-year low, lawmakers are considering some policy changes that have been off-limits in the past, such as consolidating campuses and eliminating…

Most athletics programs, if forced to raise $300-million to renovate a football stadium, would not set an ambitious endowment goal at the same time. The University of California at Berkeley is trying to do both. The university's California Memorial Stadium sits directly over an earthquake fault: it needs a major seismic retrofit that will take…

With tax revenues beginning to rebound in most states and endowments on the rebound at many private and public institutions, colleges and universities are growing more hopeful about their financial outlook and instituting new strategies to take advantage of the opportunities. Yet as the economic recovery has slowed in the past few months,…

The 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico took advantage of the nation's strong economy during the 2007-8 budget year and spent a total of nearly $10-billion on student aid. That was an increase of 6.6 percent from the year before when adjusted for inflation, according to an annual report released this week by the National…

Many independent colleges are worried that, as their states' fiscal situations decline, they will be among the first victims of budget cuts. In some states, they already are. The author reports on aid to private colleges that goes on state's chopping blocks. Forty-five states last year provided a total of more than $2-billion for programs that…

The downturn in the economy has coincided with enrollment increases at many community colleges. However, although enrollment at two-year institutions is up, several states have trimmed--or even chopped--appropriations for higher education. Florida, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Tennessee have each cut financing for 2009 by at least 5 percent,…

To be at the University of Arizona these days is, in some ways, to be under siege. The flagship university in one of the nation's fastest-growing states may have to eliminate some 600 jobs and merge dozens of programs to deal with two rounds of budget cuts imposed since June. Now the governor is telling the university and other state agencies to…

Evolve or dissolve. That advice, from a recent report on virtual universities, played out in two news stories last May 2009. The University of Texas' online division is staring down a deep budget hole as it loses a longtime subsidy. In Utah, budget cuts have killed a 10-campus online consortium. Those and other predicaments reflect the growing…

Maryland's governor, Martin J. O'Malley, didn't get much of his legislative agenda through the General Assembly this year, but he did succeed on one front: preserving enough state aid for the public-university system to stave off a tuition increase for the fourth consecutive year. Like politicians in several states, Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, made…

When the stock market plunged 778 points last week, losing almost 9% of its value in one day, higher education responded in an uncharacteristic way: It began to buckle. Colleges have often considered themselves recession-proof. However, last week's events compounded an already difficult year for many institutions, which have suffered from…

As state tax revenues plummet, some lawmakers and higher-education leaders are once again looking at loosening the bonds between state governments and public colleges to save money and give colleges the freedom to bolster their bottom lines in new ways. Over the past two decades, college officials have often lamented the growing need to secure…