The Hispanic Scholarship Fund is announcing a new effort today to increase college-going and college-completion rates among Hispanic Americans, with the goals of having a college graduate in every Hispanic household by 2025 and increasing the proportion of the U.S. Hispanic population with a college degree from 19 percent now to 60 percent by 2025. The scholarship fund, which is working to build college aspirations among Hispanic families through a public-service advertising campaign, estimates that reaching the 60-percent goal would result in a $13-trillion increase in earning power among the Hispanic population, leading to a $2.2-trillion increase in federal tax revenue.

The Lumina Foundation for Education today announced grants to support 19 projects that seek to provide a "second chance" at earning a degree for adults who have attended college but did not complete their programs. Lumina plans to provide a total of $14.8-million over four years to the efforts, which include a previously announced project with the Institute for Higher Education Policy that plans to track down former college students whose academic records qualify them to be awarded associate degrees retroactively as well as former students who fell just short of an associate degree, by nine or fewer credits, and re-enroll them.

In a conference call with student journalists on Monday, President Obama renewed his calls for reining in college costs, saying that every institution should provide a chart showing how each tuition dollar is spent. He also questioned the need for expensive amenities. "You're not going to a university to join a spa," he told the students. The president said improving the economy—to help shore up state budgets—is crucial to improving affordability, but he argued that colleges need to be mindful of teaching loads as well. Colleges should "give professors the opportunity to engage in work outside the classroom that advances knowledge," he said, "but at the same time reminding faculties that their primary job is to teach."

The U.S. education secretary, Arne Duncan, announced on Monday a national campaign to encourage more college students to train to become teachers, saying that a "huge part of the solution" to increasing the number, quality, and diversity of people entering the profession is to have colleges encourage their best students to become teachers. Mr. Duncan announced the campaign, and a Web site with information for prospective teachers, as part of NBC's two-day education summit in New York City. In a separate announcement on Monday, President Obama set a new national goal of recruiting 10,000 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers over the next two years.

Members of Congress who signed letters to Education Secretary Arne Duncan that expressed concern about the Education Department's proposed "gainful employment" rule received nearly $94,000 in campaign contributions from for-profit colleges from January to late July, according to ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit news outlet focusing on investigations. In the face of the new rule, which would cut off federal student aid to programs whose graduates have high debt-to-income ratios and low loan-repayment rates, and attacks from Congress, for-profit colleges have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress and federal agencies, nearly doubling their lobbying expenditures over the past year.

After more than a year of wondering whether low graduation and retention rates would cause the university to lose its status, Chicago State University administrators learned last month that its accreditation had been reaffirmed, according to the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune said the year of limbo took its toll on the troubled university's enrollment, which saw first-time freshman enrollment drop 12.9 percent from last year.

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said on Tuesday that he would try to pass legislation, known as the Dream Act, that would create a pathway to citizenship for thousands of undocumented immigrants who attend college and make them eligible for some forms of federal aid. Senator Reid said he planned to offer the immigration measure as an amendment next week to a bill authorizing Defense Department programs, according to news reports.

The federal government should update the process by which its agencies negotiate reimbursements to universities for the indirect costs associated with federal research grants, and the government should apply the process more consistently across institutions, says a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

Andrew M. Cuomo, New York's attorney general and the Democratic candidate for governor, announced on Tuesday that he had reached an agreement with the State University of New York to follow a set of practices that seek to protect college students from "falling victim to problematic credit-card-marketing practices." Last week, Mr. Cuomo said he was undertaking a statewide investigation into "deceptive credit-card-marketing practices that target college students" and had asked every college in the state to provide information about any exclusive contracts they have with credit- and debit-card companies.

Andrew M. Cuomo, New York's attorney general and the Democratic candidate for governor, has announced that he is undertaking a statewide investigation into "deceptive credit-card-marketing practices that target college students" and has sent letters to every college in New York, asking that they provide his office with information about any exclusive contracts they have with credit- and debit-card companies. Mr. Cuomo, who made a name for himself in higher education by cracking down on conflicts of interest in student lending, has shown interest in student credit cards before, sending out a series of subpoenas in 2008 asking colleges for details about their college-branded credit cards.