Vote on fee hike deferred, Press-Telegram
As students and professors demonstrated outside, trustees for the 23-campus California State University system postponed a vote Wednesday that would have raised fees for the second time in six months.

Caldera hits jackpot as UNM boss , Albuquerque Tribune
When he starts work at the University of New Mexico July 14, Louis Caldera will get a hefty pay raise.

Poly alum lifts off to space hall of fame, San Luis Obispo Tribune
He commanded four space shuttle missions and served with the first American group to dock with the Russian space station Mir. Now Cal Poly alumnus Robert "Hoot" Gibson will boldly go where only 48 others have gone before -- to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.

CSU trustees hear fee protests, Sacramento Bee
About 250 CSU students and faculty ... came to Long Beach Wednesday to protest the governor's proposal to increase the systemwide fees for a full-time undergraduate CSU student from $1,572 this year to $1,968 next year.

Cal Poly rodeo urged to cut chewing tobacco connection, San Luis Obispo Tribune
Anti-tobacco forces want the Cal Poly rodeo to cut all ties to chew, which would mean pulling the plug on local scholarships provided by U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.

Student union named for Indian leader, San Bernardino Sun
Cal State San Bernardino's Student Union was renamed Wednesday for a tribal leader who safely led the Serrano Mission Indians to a new settlement in the San Bernardino foothills in 1891.

SJSU Students Honor a Historic Stand, Mercury-News
Thirty-five years after Tommie Smith and John Carlos' controversial black power salute at the Mexico City Olympics, San Jose State students hope to memorialize the former Spartans sprinters with a statue on campus.

UC diversity plans improve , San Gabriel Valley Tribune/AP
University of California outreach programs aimed at bringing more disadvantaged students into the system have worked but still don't reach enough people, an outside review found.

Approval Set for New UCI Hospital, Los Angeles Times
Approval of a new hospital for UC Irvine was all but assured Wednesday when two regents committees unanimously approved a financing plan for the $365-million project, which campus officials hope will vault their medical school into the top ranks nationally.

UC Berkeley SARS ban hit with renewed criticism, San Francisco Chronicle
There is no need to cancel college classes with students newly arrived from SARS-affected regions, and no need to quarantine healthy visitors when they come to U.S. campuses from those areas, federal health authorities said Wednesday.

UC regents delay vote to raise fees, Contra Costa Times
The University of California regents on Wednesday discussed the likelihood of raising fees by at least 24 percent after listening to impassioned students, who protested further increases. University officials later said that figure may go higher -- by at least another 12.5 percent.

Colleges hunt for more savings, Los Angeles Times
After sidestepping faculty layoffs, Ventura County Community College District officials are now working with nonteaching staff and other employee groups to find millions of dollars in additional budget cuts.

College leaders pleased with budget , San Francisco Chronicle
Just hours after hundreds of angry students turned out to protest soaring student fees, state university leaders were singing the praises of Gov.

California Colleges Face Smaller Cuts in Governor's Revised State Budget Plan, Chronicle of Higher Education
Gov. Gray Davis gave California higher-education officials some encouraging budget news on Wednesday. In issuing a revised state budget plan, the governor, a Democrat, pared back hundreds of millions of dollars of cuts he had previously proposed for community colleges and largely protected the state's public universities from further reductions.

Colleges in Crisis, Business Week Online
The U.S. became the first nation to embrace mass higher education, gaining an enormous advantage in a world economy that puts increasing value on knowledge workers. But suddenly, this cornerstone of the U.S. economy is threatened by escalating costs, diminished revenues, and a troubling inability to manage the crisis.

Driven by What He Wishes He'd Learned, New York Times
He never attended journalism school himself, and he has taught only one journalism course. But Nicholas Lemann, the New Yorker correspondent who recently agreed to become dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, said that in his 31 years as a writer and editor he has often thought about things he wished he had learned in graduate school.

CDC Tells Colleges Not to Turn Away Commencement Visitors From SARS-Affected Regions, Chronicle of Higher Education
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now advising universities not to discourage the loved ones of students from countries that have been heavily affected by severe acute respiratory syndrome from attending their graduation ceremonies.

Administrator of Schools Predicts Profit by Late June, New York Times
Edison Schools, the nation's largest for-profit manager of public schools, reported yesterday that its losses continued to shrink in the first three months of this year and that it expects to report the first quarterly profit in its history by the end of June.

College Board Corrects Itself on Test Score, New York Times
For the first time in almost 20 years, the College Board has rescored the PSAT to give the 1.8 million students who took the test on Oct. 15 credit for a different answer on an ambiguous grammar question.

CalPERS Panel OKs Coverage Proposals, Los Angeles Times
Officials at the California Public Employees' Retirement System approved several proposals Tuesday aimed at improving the cost and quality of health-care coverage for the pension fund's 1.2 million members.

Dan Walters: Four legislators scrutinized as Assembly debates offshore oil bill, Sacramento Bee
Imposing tighter regulatory controls on offshore oil production is the political equivalent of opposing terrorism along the Southern California coast, whose residents love cars but hate petroleum production.

Daniel Weintraub: Davis budget pushes problems into the future, Sacramento Bee
The revised budget Gov. Gray Davis proposed Wednesday represents a risky leap into the world of deficit financing, relying on an off-the-books $11 billion loan and a prayer that the economy will revive to bail out the state.

Editorial: Charge a budget, San Diego Union Tribune
Gov. Gray Davis and other lawmakers seem willing to wager a whopping $10.7 billion in general obligation bonds that a robust economic recovery is around the corner

Opinion: New budget plan takes three steps back, none forward , San Diego Union Tribune
Gov. Gray Davis' new budget plan, and the Republican plan that came before it, serve as the ultimate confirmation that there is only one way out of the state's budget mess: The governor and just about every lawmaker in the Capitol Building need to check into a rehab clinic. They are spending addicts.

Round 2 for Davis on Deficit, Sacramento Bee
Gov. Gray Davis on Wednesday offered a revised plan for coping with a state budget deficit that now tops $38 billion, saying he sought to accommodate all sides to get a spending plan on time and avoid an even greater fiscal calamity.

Analysis: Governor tries to blend policy, politics, Sacramento Bee
Gov. Gray Davis once famously said it was legislators' job to implement his vision.
Now, as he reveals a massive makeover of his state spending plan, Davis is bending over backward to try to carry out theirs.

Davis Submits His Revised Budget Plan, Los Angeles Times
Gov. Gray Davis scrapped his original plan to deal with the state's fiscal crisis Wednesday and unveiled a new one that would go easier on the poor and schools but rely on extensive borrowing and steep tax increases to close a budget hole that has grown to $38.2 billion.

Budget revision spares colleges, San Gabriel Valley Tribune/AP
California's higher education systems were spared deeper cuts in Gov. Gray Davis' budget revision Wednesday but university officials said they expect the Legislature to take millions more dollars away and students complained of fee increases already in the works.

Davis Restores Some Funds, but Schools Still Face Deep Cuts, Los Angeles Times
Gov. Gray Davis' revised budget treats public education better than local school district leaders had feared, but many said Wednesday that they still face deep cuts in the months to come.

California colleges may not get hit as hard , Oakland Tribune
The highly anticipated revision of the governor's budget was kinder to the state's public colleges than many administrators feared.

New budget plan relies on $8 billion tax increase , San Diego Union-Tribune
Gov. Gray Davis issued a new budget plan yesterday that would use a $10.7 billion bond to ease spending cuts and lower tax increases, in a bid for legislative support amid worry that delay could cause deeper fiscal trouble.