Even before they arrive on campus, students — and their parents — are increasingly focused on what comes after college. What’s the return on investment, especially as the cost of that investment keeps rising? How will that major translate into a job?

Beginning driver Ashley Crawford grips the worn gray steering wheel and warily begins maneuvering the 1999 Ford Escort through a set of bright orange traffic cones outside Killian Senior High School. She considers herself lucky: Because of budget cuts, many schools around the country are leaving driver’s ed by the side of the road. They are cutting back on behind-the-wheel instruction or eliminating it altogether, leaving it to parents to either teach their teenagers themselves or send them to commercial driving schools.

Pittsburgh is dropping a plan that would have taxed college students on their tuition. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl proposed the 1% tax last month to raise $15 million a year that the city needs to bolster its pension plan. He nixed the idea Monday after heavy criticism from the city’s universities and colleges, and state lawmakers. Pittsburgh would have been the first city in the nation to tax tuition.

Jones Senior High School has one of the best boys’ basketball teams in eastern North Carolina, but its gymnasium is on the verge of collapse. In March, engineers found that the walls and roof don’t meet the state’s building code and that “moderate- to high-wind velocities could threaten the stability of the structures.”

As colleges add green majors and minors, classes fill up. Nationwide, more than 100 majors, minors or certificates were created this year in energy and sustainability-focused programs at colleges big and small, says the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. That’s up from just three programs added in 2005.

Schools could learn lessons on food safety. As Congress and the Obama administration seek new ways to assure the safety of food served to the nation’s schoolchildren, the most promising paths are no secret.

Colleges tackle reduced finances. U.S. colleges this year faced their worst financial challenges in decades. Endowments took their biggest hit ever — down an average 19% this year, says an estimate by the Commonfund Institute, a non-profit research organization.

For the nation’s K-12 schools, 2009 may well go down as the year when everything changed but little happened. A new president promised a fresh start but angered many in even his own party by polishing his predecessor’s apple.

A federal judge has postponed school unitary hearings on whether the North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts have met their desegregation obligations.

Tom Burnham, who will take over for his second stint as superintendent of education in January, says lawmakers should allow the state Board of Education to consolidate districts that it takes over and to establish charter schools in those districts. Mississippi law gives the state board authority to take over chronically low-performing districts.