Here is the opinion:

“Plaintiffs are California high school and college students who allege that section 31 of article I of the California Constitution violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and causes the unfair exclusion of African American, Latino, and Native American students from higher education. They seek to enjoin Governor Edmund G. Brown and Mark Yudof, President of the University of California, from enforcing section 31. Yudof asserts that he is immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment and that he is an improper defendant pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 21. Although we hold that Plaintiffs’ suit against Yudof is not barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity, we also hold that Plaintiffs’ equal protection challenge to section 31 is precluded by Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson (Wilson II), 122 F.3d 692 (9th Cir.1997), where we previously upheld the constitutionality of section 31. The district court correctly dismissed the complaint against the governor and Yudof for failure to state a claim.”

Proposition 209 was passed by California voters approximately 15 years ago. The suit was filed by 55 student applicants and By Any Means Necessary (which issued this response to the Appeals Court decision).  The measure was defended by Pacific Legal Foundation, which issued this press release, with a link to the decision.

“The issue of affirmative action will ultimately go to the U.S. Supreme Court,” according to this Reuters report.

The Department of Education had issued a $55,000 fine to Virginia Tech because, the department claimed, the institution failed to issue a “timely warning” during the horrible April 16, 2007 massacre.  Va. Tech appealed and argued that it had offered a timely warning.  The fine has been overturned.

Virginia Tech’s Associate Vice-President for University Relations reacted to Judge Canellos’s decision: “While we are satisfied with the ruling that overturns the department’s finding, there is no glee. A horrendous event happened on this campus almost five years ago. Profound sadness remains. We continue to grieve for the families of victims killed or injured by a deranged young man.”

From the regulations summary:

On June 13, 2011, the Secretary of Education (Secretary) published a notice of final regulations in the Federal Register for Program Integrity: Gainful Employment–Debt Measures (Gainful Employment–Debt Measures) (76 FR 34386). In the preamble of the final regulations, we used the wrong data to calculate the percent of total variance in institutions’ repayment rates that may be explained by race/ethnicity. Our intent was to use the data that included all minority students per institution. However, we mistakenly used the data for a subset of minority students per institution. We have now recalculated the total variance using the data that includes all minority students. Through this document, we correct, in the preamble of the Gainful Employment–Debt Measures final regulations, the errors resulting from this misapplication. We do not change the regression analysis model itself; we are using the same model with the appropriate data. Through this notice we also correct, in the preamble of the Gainful Employment–Debt Measures final regulations, our description of one component of the regression analysis. The preamble referred to use of an institutional variable measuring acceptance rates. This description was incorrect; in fact we used an institutional variable measuring retention rates. Correcting this language does not change the regression analysis model itself or the variance explained by the model. The text of the final regulations remains unchanged.

From the letter:

On December 23, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (Public Law 112-74).  The new law significantly impacts the Federal student aid programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA).  This letter provides information on the changes made to the Title IV student aid programs by Public Law 112-74 and the effective date of those changes.

The letter addresses:

- Auto-Zero EFC Income Threshold
- Ability-to-Benefit
- 2012-2013 Federal Pell Grant Amount
- Minimum Federal Pell Grant Award and Maximum EFC
- Federal Pell Grant Duration of Eligibility
- Grace Period Interest Subsidy
- Calculation of Special Allowance Payments

Institutions that want to participate in the Department of Defense’s (DoD) tuition assistance program must sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).  This program is different from the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

From DoD:

Key provisions of the memorandum require that schools provide timely course enrollment, withdrawal and cancellation information and grades, as well as an evaluated education plan outlining the courses needed for a degree.

The agreement also addresses course credit transfer, limits academic residency requirements and requires schools to evaluate military training and experience for course credit.

The date for institutions to sign this MOU has been extended from January 1, 2012 to March 31, 2012.

The description of the report:

This Statistics in Brief applies IRS rules and data to a nationally representative sample of 2007–08 undergraduates to estimate who received education tax benefits and looks at the extent to which these benefits shaped their price of college attendance.

The report had the following three study questions:

1) What percentage of  2007–08 undergraduates  received an education tax benefit and to what ex­tent did these benefits reduce the overall price of college attendance?

2) Among dependent un­dergraduates, how did receipt of education tax benefits vary by family income?

3) Among dependent under­graduate tax benefit recipients, how did the ex­tent to which education tax benefits lowered the overall price of college at­tendance vary by family income?

Key Findings of the report:

• Nearly one-half of all 2007–08 un­dergraduates were estimated to have received an education tax ben­efit, reducing recipients’ average college expenses for the academic year by about $700.
• Low-middle-income and high-middle-income dependent under­graduates were estimated to have received tax benefits at higher rates than were low-income and high-income dependent undergra­duates.  The most common reason low-income dependent students did not receive a tax benefit was that they had no net tuition after sub­tracting the grant aid and veterans benefits they received.
• Low-middle- and high-middle­-income dependent undergraduate tax benefit recipients received higher average amounts in tax benefits than low-income and high-income de­pendent undergraduate tax benefit recipients.

Some provisions of the bill (from the House Committee on Veterans Affairs):

• Expands education and training opportunities for older veterans by providing nearly 100,000 unemployed veterans of past eras and wars with up to 1-year of additional Montgomery GI benefits to go towards education or training programs at community colleges or technical schools for high-demand jobs.
• Provides disabled veterans up to 1-year of additional Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Benefits.
• Provides a tax credit of up to $5,600 for hiring veterans who have been looking for a job for more than six months, as well as a $2,400 credit for veterans who are unemployed for more than 4 weeks, but less than 6 months.

The letter is in response to the Department’s Inspector General’s report about fraud rings and distance education.

According to the letter summary:

The purpose of this letter is to provide guidance to address potential fraud in the Federal student aid programs at institutions of higher education that offer distance education programs. This letter provides an overview of the fraud schemes that the Department’s Inspector General (IG) detected, and recommends immediate steps that institutions can take to detect and prevent fraud. In this letter, we also describe further actions that institutions can take and that the Federal government is committed to taking, including increasing technical assistance to institutions of higher education, the convening of a Department-wide task force on distance education fraud, and plans for recommending legislative and regulatory changes to address the relevant issues.

The IG report, as the letter describes, identifies fraud rings that are defrauding title IV programs through distance education programs:

These fraud rings generally target institutions with low tuition in the context of distance education programs and involve a ringleader who:

• Obtains identifying information from straw students – individuals who willingly provide the information – including some who were incarcerated, by promising financial gain.

• Completes multiple financial aid applications using the information collected (name, Social Security number, date of birth, etc.).

• Applies for admission under the institution’s open admissions program, where little or no third-party documentation is required.

• Participates in the amount of on-line interaction necessary to establish participation in the academic program and secure disbursements under an institution’s procedures.

There’s a lot more details on this issue in the Department’s letter.

Topics covered include:

• State Authorization
• Retaking Coursework
• Credit Hour
• Ability-to-Benefit
• Incentive Compensation
• Misrepresentation
• Return of Title IV Funds
• Satisfactory Academic Progress
• Gainful Employment