President Barack Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 into law on Tuesday. The act included a $2 billion budget over the next for years for improvements in community colleges, according to a White House press release. This fall, Jill Biden will host a summit about community colleges with students and leaders in education and business, the release stated. The act also calls for the investment of over $40 billion in Pell Grants to ensure that all eligible students will receive a grant and that the awards will increase in the future as college costs rise, according to the release. The act also caps repayments of student loans at 10 percent of student borrowers' discretionary incomes. The effort will be funded by ending current government subsidies to banks and other financial institutions, according to the release.
The American Association of University Professors distributed a statement on Tuesday criticizing a wide-ranging policy on "Board Responsibility for Institutional Governance" issued by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges last week, according to AAUP's web site. The AAUP took issue with the section of the policy concerning universities that negotiate collective bargaining agreements with faculty, which stated that "the board should consider a formal policy regarding the role of union officials in institutional governance and articulate any limitations on their participation." The AAUP objected to the idea that union officials' involvement should be limited, saying that because the officials are also full faculty members democratically elected to their positions, the restrictions would harm "academic engagement in institutional matters," Inside Higher Ed reported Wednesday.
