Response to Spellings Panel

Inside Higher Ed:
One day after Margaret Spellings offered her prescription for the future of higher education, the Cato Institute sponsored the first of what will be many more forums in the coming months about the work of the education secretary’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. The panel featured commentators from across the political spectrum: The author and blogger Anya Kamenetz bemoaned the absence of student voices and student-centered concerns from the commission’s work. Neal McCluskey, an analyst at the libertarian Cato think tank, criticized the secretary and the commission for opening the door to a significantly expanded federal role in higher education. Christopher B. Nelson, president of St. John’s College, in Maryland, said colleges were already assessing their performance and measuring student learning much more than the commission gave them credit for, and urged Spellings to respect the variety in institutions’ missions. And Charles Miller, chairman of the Spellings panel, warned colleges that they need to take the commission’s calls for change seriously or risk having government impose solutions, which he agreed was not desirable. A Webcast of the Cato panel, which Inside Higher Ed moderated, should be available on the institute’s Web page soon.

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