Alvena Storm, 101; developed SDSU geography department , San Diego Union-Tribune
By the time San Diego State College opened amid the jack rabbits and coyotes of remote Montezuma Mesa in 1931, Alvena Storm was well on her way to developing its geography department.

Scholar's choice: CSULB, Long Beach Press-Telegram
Duong's mind is made up: He'll be a Forty-Niner at Cal State Long Beach in the fall. Credit the allure of CSULB's popular President's Scholars program, which offers full scholarships to the top high school valedictorians and National Merit scholars.

New state budget bill fails in divided Senate, San Jose Mercury-News
The state Senate failed to pass a new spending plan Tuesday, splitting along party lines in a vote that underscores the stark polarization in the Legislature over California's $38 billion budget shortfall.

Deadlock: Deadline likely to be missed, Burton says, Sacramento Bee
The Legislature's top-ranked Democrat declared California lawmakers impossibly deadlocked Tuesday and predicted there would be no budget deal before the new fiscal year starts next week.

Budget vote fails, but it's only a drill, Orange County Register
The state Senate voted on a budget Tuesday and it failed – and no one was surprised. The Senate's budget vote, one week before the fiscal year begins, is the first of three so-called budget drills in the Legislature this week.

Davis may take lab fight to regents, Sacramento Bee
The Davis City Council may send a letter to the University of California regents asking them to withdraw their application for a controversial biolab on the UC Davis campus because a proper environmental review of the project cannot be conducted.

UC Merced campus wins legal challenge, Fresno Bee
The University of California at Merced won a battle with environmental groups trying to stop construction by overturning the environmental report on the campus site.

New FDA Lab Whets UCI's Appetite for Student Enrichment, Los Angeles Times
The agency prepares to move into a $40-million center next to the Irvine university, which sees it as a source of research and jobs.

Study suggests minorities still aspire to attend UC, Hayward Daily Review
While the number of African Americans and Latinos enrolled in the University of California precipitously dropped after the end of affirmative action programs, a new study suggests that such students continue to indicate strong interest in attending the university.

Impact in California will be negligible, private universities say, San Jose Mercury News
Officials at California's private universities -- the only colleges in the state allowed to use race in admissions -- said Monday they believe their programs meet the legal test on affirmative action laid out by the Supreme Court.

Setting Students on a Course Toward College, Los Angeles Times
In a first for the area, 190 Valley seniors have finished Project GRAD, which encourages youths to pursue higher education.

After a Year, Verbum Dei's Work-Study Shows Promise, Los Angeles Times
This was the year Verbum Dei became the first school in the nation to convert to a "corporate work-study" system. Students earned much of their tuition by working one day a week at clerical jobs in law offices, insurance companies and other agencies.

Court rejects racial quotas, Daily Breeze
On university admissions, the justices reject a point system but allow minority status to be among many factors. [CSU Dominguez Hills referenced]

College Degrees in Hand, a Class Leaves High School, New York Times
Four years ago they were entering high school. Since then they have read James Joyce and Proust, wrestled with calculus and chemistry, put on plays and volunteered in the community. Their graduation yesterday might have been unremarkable except for the fact that the 93 graduates were walking away with two-year college degrees.

As Graduates Look for Work, the Engineer Is Standing Tall, New York Times
Experts predict the need for engineers in many sectors will only increase. Yet, the number of high school students interested in studying engineering in college has been on a steady decline.

Leading exam-maker put to the test, CNN/AP
The clock has been ticking down for the testing service since last year, when the ACT announced that it would add an optional essay to the second-most popular college entrance exam in the nation starting in spring 2005.

Behind Oracle's unwelcome bid for PeopleSoft, CNET
Oracle's Larry Ellison, a chief executive who's not known for being timid, has thrown a big boulder into a small pond with his company's unsolicited takeover bid for PeopleSoft. The ripples will be rocking companies in the business software industry for some time to come.

Impact on Universities Will Range From None to a Lot, New York Times
Universities across the country began grappling yesterday with the meaning of Monday's Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action.

Reading, Writing and Now Checkbook Balancing, New York Times
Before the end of the summer, scores of newly minted high school graduates will head off to college, on their own for the first time. How prepared are they to balance a checkbook, handle a credit card or budget an allowance?

Citing Flaw, New York State Voids Math Scores, New York Times
Moving to defuse a crisis for thousands of high school students, New York State's education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, yesterday set aside the results of last week's Math A Regents exam for seniors and juniors. The test is required for graduation, and many educators had described it as inordinately difficult.

Decision keeps affirmative action in closet, analysts say, San Francisco Chronicle
The U.S. Supreme Court's epic decision on affirmative action had an unseemly subtext for some observers both inside and outside the court: It's all right for colleges to consider race in admissions as long as they keep it obscure.

Affirmative action may not be needed in near future, O'Connor says, San Luis Obispo Tribune/Chicago Tribune
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said in rare interview Tuesday that if America provided adequate educational opportunities for young people, it could someday achieve the goal of ending affirmative action in college admissions.

Review & Outlook: Supreme Court Quotas, Wall St. Journal
Anyone looking for legal, much less moral, clarity from yesterday's Supreme Court rulings on race-based admissions at the University of Michigan was surely disappointed.

Editorial: A strong signal for diversity, San Jose Mercury-News
The U.S. Supreme Court has expressed the wisdom that California voters lacked when they passed Proposition 209, banning affirmative action in higher education.

Peter Schrag: Affirmative action: Back to Bakke's useful fudge, Sacramento Bee
Five days shy of the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Regents of the University of California. v. Bakke, the court has narrowly reaffirmed Bakke, permitting use of race as a "plus factor" among many others in the individual evaluation of applicants for university admission.

Editorial: Back to Bakke, Sacramento Bee
In the end, the late Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr.'s sound reasoning remains hard to refute. A quarter-century after his landmark Bakke opinion on affirmative action, the high court that inherited his reasoning has affirmed the sensible standard he laid out in 1978.

Dan Walters: Senate budget stalemate underscores depth of partisan rancor, Sacramento Bee
The once-staid yearly process of fashioning a new state budget has evolved into a more or less perpetual crisis, sometimes because Capitol politicians have too much money to spend but more often because they face a gap between revenues and spending desires.

Opinion: Next step on affirmative action? Base it on income, USA Today
Now that affirmative action has narrowly survived the Supreme Court challenge, albeit in diminished and vulnerable form, America needs to think about the day after.

Opinion: Winks, Nods -- and Preferences, Wall St. Journal
The reasons offered for racially preferential admission to institutions of higher education seem so clearly invalid as to raise a question as to the real reasons.

California Crisis: Budget Talks Stall, Recall Drive Gains, New York Times
Sacramento is in a state of near-perfect political meltdown.