IN BRIEF.

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LOAN DEFAULTS: The rate at which borrowers default on their federal student loans has dropped to an all-time low of 4.5 percent, U.S. Education Department officials announced this month. The default rate measures the percentage of borrowers who have defaulted within 12 to 24 months of leaving college. The latest data available, for borrowers who left college in the 2003 fiscal year, show that the default rate had dropped by 0.7 percentage points from the previous year. It had dropped about 18 percentage points since 1990, when the default rate peaked at 22.4 percent.

ACCREDITOR CLOSES: The Partnership for Human Research Protection Inc., of Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., one of two organizations that accredit universities for protecting human-research subjects, will fold effective November 15. Co-founded in 2003 by the Joint Commission on Accreditation on Healthcare Organizations, it has approved just nine organizations.

VISA PROBLEMS: Hurdles in the process for obtaining a visa to study in the United States are still keeping many international students away four years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, witnesses said this month at a Congressional hearing on weaknesses in the visa system. Even though steps have since been taken to streamline the process, many international students still worry about obtaining visas, and universities, students, and the economy suffer when they choose not to study here.

JOINT EFFORTS: Community colleges and four-year institutions should cooperate more closely to ensure that two-year students in engineering go on to earn bachelor's degrees in the subject, according to a report released this month by the National Academy of Engineering. The report argues that community colleges are already "essential" to the education of American engineers but "have not reached their full potential." It notes that 20 percent of engineering-degree holders began their academic careers by earning at least 10 credits at community colleges, and 40 percent of recipients of bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering in 1999 and 2000 had attended a community college. Copies of the report are available at http://www.nap.edu.@@

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