HIGHER EDUCATION OUGHT TO BE HIGHER EDUCATION. The Spellings Commission on Higher Education has released a second draft report that Inside Higher Ed characterizes as "offering far more praise and far less criticism of colleges" than the first draft. I'll reproduce the findings and the recommendations without further comment. There is sufficient material in the draft for a follow-on post.

First, the findings.

1. In today’s knowledge-driven society, the value of and need for higher education has never been more important.


2. There is insufficient preparation for, participation in, and completion of higher education nationally – especially for underserved and nontraditional groups who will be the major source of new workers as the baby boom generation reaches retirement age.


3. The system of financing higher education is increasingly dysfunctional: state subsidies are declining; tuitions are rising; cost per student is increasing faster than inflation or family income; need-based financial aid is not keeping pace; the student aid system is playing roles it increasingly can’t support; and public concern about rising costs is contributing to the erosion of public credibility in higher education.


4. The entire financial aid system – including federal, state, institutional, and private programs – is inefficient, duplicative, and frequently does not direct aid to students who truly need it.


5. At a time when we need to be increasing the quality of learning outcomes from a college education, there are too many signs that suggest we are moving in the opposite direction.


6. There is inadequate transparency and accountability for institutional access, quality, and cost.


7. There are barriers to increasing institutional capacity and investment in innovation which will significantly affect our ability to address national workforce needs and compete in the global marketplace.

Can you say tradeoffs? The report pays some attention to the failures of K-12 to prepare their students for university. I hope that this report will stimulate a conversation on the potential disadvantages of using the same theories of pedagogy that have turned K-12 into a disaster area as models for higher education. If we'll see the last of "learning objectives" and "assessment" as a consequence, it will not be too soon.

The recommendations also suggest that tradeoffs matter.

1. To meet the challenges of the 21st century, higher education must change from a system based on reputation to one based on performance. We recommend the creation of a robust culture of accountability and transparency throughout higher education. Every one of our other goals, from improving access and affordability to enhancing quality and innovation, will be more easily achieved if higher education embraces and implements serious accountability measures.


2. The nation should establish postsecondary education as an opportunity for every student. We recommend, therefore, that the U.S. commit to an unprecedented effort to expand college access and success by improving student preparation and persistence, addressing non-academic barriers to college and providing significant increases in aid to low-income students.


3. Higher education is becoming increasingly unaffordable for students, their families, states and the federal government – and too many low income students are shut out from college altogether. In order to address the spiraling cost of a college education and the fiscal realities affecting government’s ability to finance higher education in the long run, we recommend that the entire student financial aid system be restructured and new incentives put in place to improve the measurement and management of costs and institutional productivity.


4. With some exceptions, higher education has yet to address the fundamental issues of how academic programs and institutions must be transformed to serve the changing needs of a knowledge economy. We recommend that America’s colleges and universities embrace a culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement by developing new pedagogies, curricula, and technologies to improve learning, particularly in the area of science and mathematical literacy.


5. In order to prosper in an ever more competitive global economy, America must ensure our citizens’ access to high quality and affordable educational, learning, and training opportunities throughout their lives. We recommend the development of a national strategy for lifelong learning designed to keep our citizens and nation at the forefront of the knowledge revolution.


6. The United States must ensure the capacity of its universities to achieve global leadership in key strategic areas such as science, engineering, medicine, and other knowledge-intensive professions. We recommend increased federal investment in areas critical to our nation’s global competitiveness and a renewed commitment to attract the best and brightest minds from across the nation and around the world to lead the next wave of American innovation.

It is difficult to take seriously a list of recommendations that begins by suggesting "reputation" can exist independently of "performance." The specifics go on to recommend that the Department of Education provide a public database for evaluating "institutional performance." Corporate welfare for U.S. News?

The pundits at Phi Beta Cons have had some opportunity to digest the report, with the expected observations. Anne D. Neal is disappointed.

The report stresses the need to ensure that students graduate with the skills they need to function in an increasingly competitive global economy—but fails to address the fact that students don't graduate with those skills because the undergraduate curriculum is not designed to ensure that they acquire them. The report also fails to note that today's truly educated American needs more than skills—he or she also needs a strong grasp of what democracy is, what citizenship means, and why they matter.

Again, it matters that higher education be, well, higher education, not a make-up of high school. The value of this report will be in both stimulating conversation and encouraging action such that the common schools do their job in order that the colleges and universities be able to do theirs.

George Leef takes a dimmer view.

The trouble with American higher ed is not "access" or the want to innovative teaching methods or insufficient attention to math and science.

The big problem is that huge numbers of kids go to college for four or five or six years to enjoy the beer-and-circus atmosphere (to borrow the title of Murray Sperber's book) and then graduate with little or no gain in knowledge and skills compared to when they entered.

Then, usually burdened by debt, they end up doing the same kinds of jobs that any typical high school student could easily learn to do.

Our low and declining academic standards should have been a centerpiece of the report, but it's hardly even a bit of garnish.

Perhaps what is required is for strong voices in higher education to say Enough to doing the work of the high schools, because the high schools failed to do their work. In the absence of that concrete action, Mr Leef is likely to be correct.