In annual rankings of the best places to work in the federal government, the Education Department ranked third from the bottom in the "large agencies" category, scoring just above the National Archives and Records Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which tied for last. The rankings are produced by the Partnership for Public Service and American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.

Having blocked California's attempt to sell its student-loan guarantor, EdFund, the federal government has selected the Educational Credit Management Corporation to take over the state's student-loan-guarantee business at the end of October, the Sacramento Bee reported. The cash-strapped state had been trying to sell EdFund for $1-billion to help plug its budget deficit.

As policymakers seek to increase accountability in higher education and ask colleges to report more data, the Government Accountability Office examined the time and cost burden that institutions face when completing the Education Department's annual survey for its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The GAO report found that the Education Department's estimates of the time it takes colleges to complete the IPEDS survey are often significantly lower than the time colleges themselves report that they spend and that some officials, particularly at career and technical colleges, are unaware of available training that could improve the process. The GAO recommended that Education officials reevaluate their official estimates of the time it takes for colleges to complete IPEDS surveys, communicate to a wider range of colleges the opportunites for training, and coordinate with...

Education Department officials announced on Friday the 49 colleges, school districts, and other nonprofit educational groups that have been selected to receive grants through a $650-million Investing in Innovation Fund. The program, created under the federal stimulus law, seeks to close achievement gaps and improve educational outcomes—including college enrollment and completion rates—by giving money to programs with a strong track record of success, growing programs that demonstrate emerging evidence of success, and innovative ideas. To receive the federal grants, the winning applicants must now secure money to support their efforts from the private sector, equal to at least 20 percent of the federal grant.

States' overall tax revenue rose slightly in the first quarter of 2010 from the previous year, the first such year-to-year increase since the third quarter of 2008, according to a new report on state revenue by the State University of New York's Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. However, the report is quick to temper the good news, saying the 2.5-percent increase seen early this year does not indicate a broad financial recovery, because the growth was largely the result of legislated tax increases in California and New York.

The Georgia General Assembly has passed a bill that would increase to 14 years, from 10 under current law, the length of time a for-profit college must be operating in the state before its students can be eligible to receive the state's merit-based Hope Scholarship and Tuition Equalization Grants, which aid Georgia residents who attend private colleges in the state. Under the current, 10-year time frame, the University of Phoenix's students are set to become eligible for the state aid in May 2011, according to the Georgia Student Finance Commission, but that would be delayed by four years if the bill became law. Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, has not indicated whether he will sign the legislation.

Calling improving the United States' record on college completion a "national imperative," six groups that represent community colleges signed a pledge today to "promote the development and implementation of policies, practices, and institutional cultures that will produce 50 percent more students with high-quality degrees and certificates by 2020, while increasing access and quality." The groups that signed the "call to action" are the American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of Community College Trustees, the Center for Community College Student Engagement, the League for Innovation in the Community College, the National Institute for Staff & Organizational Development, and the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society.

A nonprofit group in Georgia has sued the University System of Georgia, the system's Board of Regents, Gov. Sonny Perdue, and the state, asserting that inequities persist at the state's three public historically black colleges because a lack of state support has prevented the institutions from establishing professional programs on a par with those at other state colleges, according to the Associated Press. A lawyer for the nonprofit group that filed the lawsuit, the Legal Defense Coalition for the Preservation of Public HBCUs, told the AP that the alumni associations of Georgia's three historically black colleges support the legal action, as does the Georgia NAACP.

Rep. John P. Murtha, a powerful Pennsylvania congressman renowned for his prowess in bringing home pork-barrel spending to his district, has died from complications of gallbladder surgery, according to news reports. Mr. Murtha, a Democrat, was chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees military spending. Among the money he has steered to projects in his home state were controversial grants given to higher-education institutions, such as $50-million in earmarked, noncompetitive funds for a homeland-security institute at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and $2-million for a project to support the creation of a cybersecurity curriculum by Carnegie Mellon University and the Community College of Allegheny County that two-year institutions were to have used to supply staff members to American businesses seeking protection from computer attack.

State legislators in Illinois used a scholarship program that allows them to grant some individuals tuition waivers at the state’s public colleges to aid at least 197 relatives of people who had contributed to their political campaigns, according to Illinois Statehouse News, which examined records for the period from 2003 to 2008. The findings come in the wake of an admissions scandal this year at the University of Illinois that also raised concerns about political favoritism in the state’s higher-education system.