Several two- and four-year colleges in the Philadelphia area are luring back dropouts through grade-forgiveness programs, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today. The programs come amid a national push, especially by the Obama administration, to persuade former students to complete their degrees.

A letter sent to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan criticizing the aggressive recruitment of homeless students by for-profit colleges may have been orchestrated by an investment firm, according to an article in ProPublica, an online, nonprofit news service that conducts investigative journalism. Numerous executives of homeless shelters and service agencies signed the letter without knowing of its alleged ties to the investment firm. For-profit colleges have complained that some investors on Wall Street could be trying to purposely drive down the colleges' stock prices in order to make money as short sellers, a stock bet based on a predicted fall in share value.

A top executive at the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District earned both sick pay from the district and, at the same time, a separate salary for teaching at a nearby community-college district, according to a report by the San Jose Mercury News. The revelation comes at a time when the San Jose/Evergreen district is facing economic hardship because of state budget cuts, and as a result students are being shut out of classes.

A three-year-old initiative in Michigan to retrain displaced workers has been a boon for enrollment at for-profit colleges rather than at the state's community colleges, according to a report in The Detroit News. Fewer than one-third of the displaced workers participating in the No Worker Left Behind program have chosen to attend two-year public colleges.

The Southern Regional Education Board and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education have released a joint report outlining recommendations for how states can adopt better, more comprehensive policies to improve students' readiness to go to college.

The American Association of Community Colleges has chosen Walter G. Bumphus to serve as its next president. Mr. Bumphus, a former president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College system, is a professor in the Community College Leadership Program and chair of the department of educational administration at the University of Texas at Austin. He begins his new post on January 1, 2011.

The U.S. Department of Education today announced in the Federal Register a set of proposed regulations aimed at protecting students and safeguarding federal spending on student aid. The rules, which were disclosed on Tuesday, would apply to all of higher education, if they are adopted as proposed, but would primarily affect the for-profit sector.

An offer by Lansing Community College guaranteeing students a job a year after graduation or their money back attracted few takers, according to the Lansing State Journal. The college originally planned to offer training in four programs: pharmacy technician, customer-service call-center worker, certified quality inspector, and computer numeric-control machinist. Only the machinist and pharmacy programs attracted enough students to move forward.

An Alabama judge has ruled that state lawmakers who also work in Alabama's two-year-college system should not be forced to give up one of their two state jobs under a new school-board policy, according to The Montgomery Advertiser. The board imposed the policy to end the practice of what critics call "double dipping." The state plans to appeal the ruling.

Twelve Chicago-area colleges have formed an alliance to raise community-college and baccalaureate graduation rates, according to Governors State University, which played host to a summit of the institutions last week. Aside from sharing information and coordinating admissions and financial-aid advising, the colleges plan to create a way to make the transfer process to a four-year college simpler for students.