Boston Globe: Education panel pushes for more need-based college aid
A national commission charged with charting the future of American higher education approved its final recommendations yesterday, calling on the government to provide more aid based on financial need, while telling colleges to be more accountable for what students learn.
Inside Higher Ed: 18 Yesses, 1 Major No
One by one, the members of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education offered their support for the panel’s report, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Some, like James B. Hunt, the former governor of North Carolina, virtually gushed, saying it “could be one of the most important reports in the educational and economic history of our country if we act on it.”
USA Today: Panel calls for “urgent reform” of higher education
Warning that U.S. higher education ìrequires urgent reform,î a national panel created by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is recommending a set of bold proposals, including overhauling the financial aid system and holding colleges and universities more accountable for their students’ progress.
The Chronicle: Federal Panel Approves Final Draft Report on Higher Education, With One Member Dissenting
It took 11 months, eight meetings, and countless e-mail exchanges, but the 19 members of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education have finally coalesced around a long-term vision for the nation’s colleges.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Friday, August 11, 2006
Federal Panel Approves Final Draft Report on Higher Education, With One Member Dissenting
By KELLY FIELD
Washington
It took 11 months, eight meetings, and countless e-mail exchanges, but the 19 members of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education have finally coalesced around a long-term vision for the nation’s colleges.
At a meeting here on Thursday, the panel voted, almost unanimously, to approve a report that warns of the perils of complacency and calls for sweeping changes in American higher education. The report will now go through final edits and revisions before being presented to the U.S. secretary of education in mid-September.
The motion to approve the report came via intercom from former Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., who was recovering from surgery at his North Carolina home. One by one, in alphabetical order, the commissioners voiced approval for the report, saying its dozens of recommendations would make higher education more accessible, more accountable, and more competitive in the global economy.
The only real dissent came from David Ward, president of the American Council on Education.
“I may be raining on this unanimous report,” he began. “However, as I review the final draft in its entirety, I regret that I cannot sign it.”
Mr. Ward said the report projected a “false sense of crisis” and blamed higher education for problems with multiple origins. He said it failed to recognize the diversity of higher education and seemed to suggest a “one size fits all” approach to improving higher education.
“Change in higher education is needed, but we need to get it right and above all do no harm,” he said in a statement circulated at the meeting. “I believe I can be more effective in this continuing dialogue if I am free to contest some aspects of this report.”
Robert M. Zemsky, chairman of the Learning Alliance for Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania, said he shared some of Mr. Ward’s concerns, though he pledged to vote for the report.
“David is right — we need to talk about building on the strengths of higher educations, and not on its weaknesses,” he said.
Mr. Zemsky argued that by focusing on higher education’s flaws — particularly in the early versions of the report — the commission had alienated academe. He said he had been “disheartened” by the large number of e-mail messages he had received “from people who are hostile” to the commission.
“There are a lot of people out there who no longer believe in us,” he said. “So we have more than heavy lifting to do, we have trust building as well.”
Reaction to the report from the “big six” higher-education associations has been mixed. While the American Association of State Colleges and Universities has largely endorsed the report — the association’s president, Constantine W. (Deno) Curris, on Thursday called it a “solid report” with “powerful and very good recommendations” — the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities has been highly critical of its proposals to create a national “unit record” database and overhaul the federal student-financial-aid system.
Meanwhile, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and the Association of American Universities have submitted letters offering some praise and much criticism of the report. Among other things, both letters argue that the report neglects graduate and professional education, ignores colleges’ efforts to contain costs, and overlooks the experimentation and change already taking place on college campuses.
“To suggest that we are complacent is a bit absurd,” Robert M. Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities, said in an interview. “I think we have engaged in a good deal of self-criticism, probably more self-criticism than any other sector of American society.”
The American Association of Community Colleges said in a statement that while the report, “on balance,” is positive for higher education, it “does not adequately address the role that state and local funding … play in the health of community colleges.”
And while the state-college groups have worked together to develop an accountability system for public colleges, all of the associations agree that any such assessment should be voluntary, and not imposed by the states, as the first three versions of the report proposed. This week, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges scored a victory when it persuaded the commission to eliminate language urging states to “require” colleges to measure student-learning outcomes.
Members of the commission did not comment on the lobbyists’ concerns on Thursday, but urged the associations to work with them to carry out the reports’ recommendations.
“This will not be a time to nitpick and to complain,” said Mr. Hunt. “This will be a time we really need to push forward and change American higher education.”
And one commission member, Arthur J. Rothkopf, the former president of Lafayette College, issued a “plea” to the independent-college association, known as Naicu, to “take a hard look at what we’re recommending and not reflexively say no.”
“I would urge the presidents of private institutions to read the report before taking the response that this can’t be done,” he said.
In an interview after the meeting, David L. Warren, Naicu’s president, questioned whether Mr. Rothkopf had read the letter the association had sent to the commission on Tuesday. In the letter, Mr. Warren highlights his concerns but also notes that there are “many elements in the current draft that the Naicu membership can support and even applaud,” including the emphasis on increasing need-based aid and reducing regulation.
“I think we took a reasonably balanced view about the content of the report,” he said.
Thursday’s meeting was the final one for the federal panel, which Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings formed last fall to develop “a comprehensive national strategy for the future of higher education.” Still, several members admitted that the hardest part of their job — moving their report from recommendation to reality — lies ahead, and they pledged to support legislation and regulations to put their proposals in place.
“We have aspired, inspired, and now it is time to perspire,” said Nicholas Donofrio, executive vice president for innovation and technology for IBM. “The heavy work is clearly ahead of us.”
Copyright © 2006 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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