FAULT LINES: Budget cuts are taking their toll on City College of San Francisco, where limited course offerings bar student access and unfilled vacancies leave jobs undone.

REVERSAL IN VIRGINIA ON ANTI-GAY BIAS: Governor issues order protecting colleges’ nondiscrimination policies from demands by attorney general that they be changed.

EXPRESS LANE TO A B.A.: A year after politicians and pundits started talking about three-year degrees, more colleges are starting programs or considering them.

CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVES: College leaders in the U.S. urged to enhance unity of North American higher ed on same day European academics issue study on how unified their institutions have become.

NEW BATTLEGROUND FOR PUBLISHERS: With demand for online assessment and e-tutoring tools growing, good textbooks alone are no longer enough to win over professors.

SPRING BREAK IN A DISASTER ZONE: Despite warnings urging them to stay home, college students plan trips to earthquake-damaged Haiti.

NOT SO PRIVATE PROFESSORS: Faculty try to shield their personal lives from students, but the suspension of a Pennsylvania professor over Facebook postings shows there’s no such sanctuary online.

MARCH ON EVERYWHERE! Protesters from all sectors of eduction rally across the nation, and the Bay Area increasingly resembles the center
of a movement.

BUYER’S MARKET: With enrollments booming and dollars in short supply, community colleges look to vacant commercial properties and land swaps to acquire more space.

BAD ADVICE, NO ADVICE: The high school counselors who guide students through college admissions receive poor grades in a new national
survey.

PROTESTERS RECEIVE COY EMBRACE: March 4 demonstrations across California and nation will call for greater higher ed support, but college leaders give tepid public endorsement to volatile grass roots movement.

HIGHLIGHTING E-READERS: Colleges release analyses of major experiments with Kindles — and find students use less paper with the devices, but want better note-taking ability.

OUTREACH TO GAY APPLICANTS: Like many colleges, Penn has undergrads help woo admitted students with similar interests or ethnic backgrounds. Now the university is recruiting based on sexual orientation too.

FAMILY VALUES AND THE NCAA: Amid criticism from gay rights advocates, athletic association pulls advertisements from pro-family group that sparked Super Bowl controversy.

DROP-OUT INSURANCE: Is the market to assure parents of tuition refunds about to take off?

There are 2.8 million students living on-campus.

There are 2,252 institutions offering housing in the United States.

The U.S. Census also counts:

Students in college or university housing by state
Total number of higher education students overall
Numbers of students in specific sorts of majors
The number of non-traditional-age students.

These stats are a great resource for us; I have some of them posted in front of my desk because I refer to them so often. ACUHO-I members are thrilled these statistics exist. And they’re free for public use.

So help the Census out, won’t you? The decennial census is this year. This is the big one, where baseline numbers for things such as students in residence halls per state are counted. It’s to our benefit to do this. Refer to this letter from the Department of Education and this Chronicle of Higher Education article for details.

CEILING FOR TUITION HIKES: Middlebury, in unusual move, plans to limit increases for the long run to no more than 1 percentage point above inflation rate.

STEP RIGHT UP: Sensing opportunity, more private institutions court community college transfer students.

CREDIT CARDS AND CAMPUSES: As federal law takes effect Monday, consumer advocates students will earn significant new protections, and colleges face several new requirements.

IS HECKLING A RIGHT? Incident at Irvine prompts debate over whether repeatedly interrupting a campus speaker is an exercise of free expression or the suppression of free expression.

ALLERGIC NATION: Colleges take steps to accommodate growing numbers of students with food allergies.

At Inside HigherEd this week, balancing the rights of the accused and the accuser when claims of sexual harassment are made; motivating students to motivate themselves; and Dartmouth quits their ‘no loans’ policy too.

BAD NEWS BINGHAMTON: Independent audit of scandal surrounding SUNY institution’s basketball team reveals severe lack of oversight from outgoing president and former athletics director.

RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED: As faculty and administration at Southern Illinois at Carbondale hammer out a policy for sexual harassment claims, professors fear for due process rights.

MEN OF MERIT: Michigan’s Jackson Community College thinks its black male students may be their own best motivators.

E-LIBRARY ECONOMICS: New research indicates that e-book oriented libraries could save colleges a bundle, but academics may have a hard time letting go of the stacks.

DARTMOUTH DROPS ‘NO LOANS’: Shift, a week after similar move by Williams, suggests more institutions will restore borrowing to students’ aid packages.

NO MORE EARLY VACATIONS: Think it’s not worth holding class the Friday before spring break? Faculty leaders at Penn State want you to know they disagree.

LOOKING FOR HELP: Campus counseling centers report a 16% increase in last year in students seeking assistance.

GENDER GAP STOPS GROWING: New analysis suggests that — except for Latinos — the decline in male enrollment rates has leveled off:

PLAGIARISM PREVENTION WITHOUT FEAR: New trial suggests that teaching students about integrity issues can be effective, especially with those who may otherwise be the most likely to copy.

AWAITING THE TABLET: Will Apple’s new electronic device galvanize the market for e-textbooks and transform higher education?

V.A. officials say the have received 132,000 enrollment certifications for the current term, and 105,000 have been processed. They didn’t say how many veterans have their benefits in-hand. The agency has promised all veterans who submitted materials by January 19 will have received their benefits by February 1. Materials received after that will be processed as soon as possible.

There are still about 500 veterans who have yet to receive their fall benefits. The V.A. and institutions blame each other for the fall delays, and relations between them are frosty. The V.A. says it didn’t receive some enrollment certification forms until the late fall; institutions say the V.A.’s work was backed up well before the late fall, and that they offered students leniency, and even interest-free loans, to help veterans stay in school and pay for necessities.

Both parties are hoping things will be easier this spring; the V.A. is expressing confidence about this; institutions are expressing doubt.

FRESHMEN ABANDON BUSINESS: Amid recession, incoming students find field of study less appealing than ever, according to national survey.

HISTORIC DECLINES: Study shows extent of state cuts to higher education and key role of federal stimulus funds in minimizing (but not preventing) absolute drops in support over last two years.

HELP FOR HAITIAN STUDENTS: Colleges in New York City and Miami rush to provide counseling and other services to large populations of students affected by last week’s earthquake.

FREEZER BURN: Tuition freezes may be politically popular, and even appropriate in emergencies, but they often lead to dramatic hikes in future years.

SPORTS SUBSIDIES SOAR: At time of financial peril in higher education, ‘USA Today’ data show level of institutional financing for athletics programs is large and growing.