BAD NEWS ABOUT BUDGETS

Annual state appropriations for higher education inched up by less than 1 percent for the 2009 fiscal year, the slowest growth in five yers.

• DATA: How the states rank in appropriations to higher education; one-year changes in state appropriations; reversal of a trend in state support.

Nominee for Education Secretary Discusses His Priorities

Grants Have More Takers but Are Still Below Goals

Big Hopes Pinned on Obama at National Association of Scholars' Meeting

Colleges See Slowest Growth in State Aid in 5 Years

• Data: Changes in State Appropriations and How the States Rank

Colleges Press New Ideas as They Brace for Bumpy State-Budget Sessions

• Video: College Lobbyists Draw Up a Battle Plan

Obama Faces Wide Pool of Possible Picks for Postsecondary Posts

DEAN TO SOLICITOR GENERAL: President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, as his nominee for solicitor general.

ACADEMIC IS CIA PICK: Leon E. Panetta, a Washington insider turned academic, has been chosen to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

TRIMMING THE PORK: Spending bills for the 2010 fiscal year will contain half as many earmarks as those in 2006.

PICTURE HIM: Pete Souza, an assistant professor of photojournalism at Ohio University, has been named chief White House photographer.

POSSIBLE NIH LEADER: Francis S. Collins, a former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, may be in line to head the National Institutes of Health.

FISCAL CRISES, TUITION POLICY, STUDENT AID...: The American Association of State Colleges and Universities has released its list of the top 10 state-policy issues that will affect higher education this year.

GRIM HORIZON: President Bush's first treasury secretary told a meeting of private-college presidents that the current recession with be both deeper and longer than previous ones.