Impact...

New admissions policy draws fire at UC

The new graduate school admissions policy at the University of California has drawn fire from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the California Women's Law Center and a San Francisco-based group named the Equal Rights Advocates. The organizations' objections culminated in a complaint filed with the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights. The complaint states that the new admissions policy at UC is designed to discriminate against female and minority applicants.

Pell Grants may be in trouble

President Clinton's proposal to increase support for the Pell Grant Program by 29 percent may have tough sledding in Congress. The March 28 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education reported that when an auditor took a close look at Pell Grant recipients in 1995-96, it appeared that 102,000 students who were the recipients of $109 million in grant awards "either failed to report or underreported their income." When the students' aid applications were compared with their parents' federal tax returns, it was discovered that more than 300 had underreported their parents' income by $100,000 each.

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