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Whither the Future of Higher Education?

            Preliminary Federal Commission Report Issued

Within the last week, Margaret Spellings, the Secretary of the United States Department of Education,  announced the release of the Final Report of her “Commission on the Future of Higher Education” available at  http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/pre-pub-report.pdf.  The Commission’s work has been accompanied by controversy from the start, with the appointment of Charles Miller, a Texas businessman.  Miller has been attacked by some for advocating for accountability testing in colleges and universities, although as the Commission’s work progressed Miller retreated from his call for testing, referring to his opponents’ “standardized anxiety.”  Others have praised Miller and the Commission, comparing the importance of the group’s assessment of the “current state of American higher education” to past initiatives that led to land grant colleges and to the G.I. Bill.

Other controversial aspects of the Commission’s discussions have included proposals to substantially alter the current higher education accreditation structure, to substitute private loans for certain federal Stafford loans and to create a massive new centralized government student record database.

One of the least controversial parts of the Commission’s work has been its apparent conclusion that federal regulation of higher education is unnecessarily burdensome and should be reduced.  The Catholic University Office of General Counsel (“OGC”) played a role in providing information about the federal regulatory burden to the Commission, including a paper published by the Commission .  OGC was originally contacted by the Commission staff last winter, who were seeking information from the office’s Campus Legal Information Clearinghouse web page http://counsel.cua.edu about the extent of federal regulation in higher education.  

Ultimately, OGC was able to collect recommendations from a number of colleagues around the country and pass them on to the commission along with the office’s own recommendations for regulatory reform.  The preliminary final report includes several of the recommendations made by CUA.  Secretary Spellings will determine which recommendations warrant implementation and is expected to take steps quickly to begin trying to implement changes recommended by the Commission.