Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• Here’s another bit of information on the U.S. Department of Education’s list of college costs, which KU officials said misrepresented their net cost as too high because of a reporting error on the university’s part.

I heard a fair bit of chatter about the lists, as some awesome Heard on the Hill tipsters dutifully tipped me off to their existence Thursday before KU issued an evening news release detailing the error.

But it’s becoming more and more clear that folks are interested in this kind of stuff. Look at the lead of a story in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Colleges have stumbled into an age of accountability,” the article said. “The government and the public are evermore interested in holding them responsible: for what students learn when they’re on campus, for how many of them leave with a degree, and for the debt and job prospects they face when it’s over.”

KU is attempting to navigate itself off the list of the top 5 percent of colleges who have the highest net cost, and reacted quickly to the error. So it’s becoming more and more apparent that this stuff matters to folks, and I’ll be interested to watch how it develops over time.

• KU has hired a new director for its Office of Professional Military Graduate Education.

Gary “Michael” Denning is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel with 27 years of service that includes three tours of service in Iraq. He begins in his new role effective July 11.

He replaces Adrian Lewis as the first director of the OPMGE, which is overseen by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

That office works with many different KU programs, including the Wounded Warrior Initiative, which I have written about before. It also supports and encourages all kinds of partnerships and exchanges between KU and the armed forces.

And more opportunities for partnerships could be on the way.

Denning earned his bachelor’s degree from KU, a master’s with distinction from the Naval War College and a national security fellowship from the Kennedy School of Public Affairs at Harvard University.

• The University Daily Kansan reports on a new parking system coming to the Kansas Union garage.

The new gate will allow people to pay using a credit card instead of using coins. The writers of the article, who have clearly seen my backseat, said students won’t be needing those “grimy coins from their backseat” anymore.

The gates will also prevent people from leaving the garage without paying, the article reported.

• Hey, a new fiscal year starts today. Everybody should celebrate by sending me a tip for Heard on the Hill at ahyland@ljworld.com.