For a long time, most public colleges and universities have gotten their funding based on how many students they enroll. More students mean more money.

But economic pressures have convinced states they should only reward results that help students, and the state's economy.

Tennessee is a leader among states trying to peg funding to the number of students who actually graduate with a degree.

GETTING EDUCATION TO DO MORE FOR THE STATE

 Tonight, the Flagstaff City Council will hold a panel discussion on the current and future uses of reclaimed wastewater. While the thought of drinking treated wastewater is stomach-churning to many, it may – someday – become standard in the U.S. And the conversation over what to do with wastewater is a heated one.

In between his speakership and his presidential candidacy, Newt Gingrich built a network of organizations to promote his causes — and himself.

Informally known as Newt Gingrich Inc., those entities have flourished. But questions linger, especially about two of them: the Gingrich Group, a for-profit consulting firm; and a unit of the Gingrich Group called the Center for Health Transformation.

Five months after the implosion of Enron, Feb. 12, 2002, Enron's chief executive, Ken Lay, finally stood in front of Congress and the world and placed his hand on a bible.

At that point everyone had questions for Lay. It was clear by then that Enron was the product of a spectacular ethical failure, that there had been massive cheating and lying. The real question was, how many people had been dishonest? Who was in on it?

She'll still get about $50 million a year in taxpayers' money to run her palaces and travel the world, but there's word from the U.K. that Queen Elizabeth II has had her "pay" frozen until at least 2015.

Hard times, after all, require sacrifices.

Herman Cain quit the presidential primary over the weekend and an Atlanta TV station reports that he may endorse his former rival, Newt Gingrich. NPR's Ken Rudin talks about Cain's decision to quit, and how it will change the primary field.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Over the weekend, as the number killed rose over 4,000, one U.N. official took the considered step of describing the situation in Syria as a civil war. While much of the opposition to the government of Bashar al-Assad remains peaceful, defectors from the military have taken up arms, neighborhoods have formed ad-hoc militias, political and military opposition groups have established a presence across the border in Turkey.

Many doctors complain that the few patients who refuse immunizations put all patients at risk, and some refuse them treatment. New York Times Ethicist Ariel Kaminer addresses the question of whether it's ethical for pediatricians to refuse routine care to families with unvaccinated children.

When Freeman Hrabowski became president of The University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 1992, he made it his mission to close the achievement gap. UMBC now sends more African-African students to graduate school in science and technology than any other predominantly white university in the U.S.