For-profit colleges exceed two-year institutions on several fronts, including graduation rates and the enrollment of underrepresented students, according to a report released today by the Parthenon Group, an independent research organization. The new report, which echoes findings of a special report published in February by The Chronicle as well as other recent reports, was supported by Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit education company.

A new report by MDRC Inc., a nonprofit social-policy research organization, examines how men of color who attend community colleges perceive their college environment and its challenges. The hope is that two-year colleges will use the information to better meet the needs of those students.

A report released by the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education is described as the first to categorize and inventory specific online occupational programs in community colleges. The report examines institutional, economic, and social factors that influence offerings of online programs and their connection to work-force-development needs.

Dozens of public high schools in eight states have signed on to participate in a program that would allow 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to receive high-school diplomas two years early and immediately enroll in a community college, The New York Times reports. The nonprofit National Center on Education and the Economy is spearheading the project and outlined its goals in a December 2006 report that laid out a sweeping proposal for overhauling the nation's education system.

More than $225-million in U.S. Department of Labor grant awards are being earmarked to train 15,000 people for careers in health care, information technology, and other fast-growing fields, according to a joint announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Labor Department. The training will be offered at community colleges and other local education providers. The money is part of $1-billion in federal stimulus money being doled out to help make health information technology available to more than 100,000 health-care providers by 2014 and to support job training.

Lansing Community College will give students their money back if they cannot find a job a year after completing a short-term noncredit training program at the Michigan institution, reports the Lansing State Journal. The offer applies to only four programs: pharmacy technician, customer-service call-center workers, certified quality inspectors, and home-technology-integration technicians. The community college made the offer to encourage potential students to enroll, the newspaper reports.

A new report from the University of Southern California's Center for Urban Education has identified 25 Hispanic-serving colleges and universities in five states as potential examples of colleges with effective practices for increasing the number of Latino recipients of bachelor's degrees in the so-called STEM fields -- science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Brian K. Johnson, president of Montgomery College, has resigned his post following an internal investigation of his expenditures at the community college in Maryland. Mr. Johnson had been on paid administrative leave since September 3, after the Board of Trustees decided not to renew his contract amid allegations that he had inappropriately spent college money and repeatedly missed important meetings. According to a statement released by the college, its board reviewed Mr. Johnson's expenditures and resolved any questions about them to its satisfaction.

A panel of negotiators reviewing U.S. Department of Education rules that affect higher education, particularly for-profit colleges, reconvened on Monday. The panel will spend the week discussing proposed revisions in the rules. Most of the members disagreed with the department's suggestion that colleges keep listings of high schools in three categories, related to the validity of the diplomas they award.

The number of associate degrees and vocational certificates awarded by postsecondary institutions has reached almost 1.5 million, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. Education Department's statistical arm. Most of the growth was driven by women seeking credentials in health-care fields, especially black and Hispanic women. The report, "Changes in Postsecondary Awards Below the Bachelor's Degree: 1997-2007," says that while community colleges still award a majority of credentials below the bachelor's degree, the number of credentials awarded by those institutions increased by 26 percent over the decade, not even half the increase seen by for-profit institutions, which increased 54 percent.