NYT: Panel's Draft Report Calls for an Overhaul of Higher Education Nationwide
By KAREN W. ARENSON
Published: June 27, 2006
Nearly every aspect of higher education in America needs fixing, according to a draft report of a national commission that calls for an overhaul of the student financial aid system, better cost controls by colleges and universities and more proof of results, including testing.
The report by the panel appointed last year by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was highly critical of the nation's institutions of higher education. It said there was a lack of accountability to show that students were learning, that college costs have risen too high, and that "unacceptable numbers of college graduates" were entering the workforce without skills that employers say they need.
In addition, the draft said, "rising costs, combined with a confusing, inadequate financial aid system, leave some students struggling to pay for education that, paradoxically, is of uneven and at times dubious quality."....
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The 19-member commission, led by Charles Miller, a private investor and former head of the University of Texas Board of Regents, was formed to study how to increase access, affordability and accountability in higher education. Its recommendations could prove important for the country's 17 million college students and their parents.
But with panelists from different branches of higher education and from business, the commission has shown sharp divisions. Mr. Miller described the draft, released yesterday, as a "work in progress" that was being released "to further engage the public in our national dialogue."... Robert Zemsky, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, said the draft did not reflect his views and needed significant re-writing. "The report is really by the staff and the consultants and not by the commission," Professor Zemsky said, calling the process by which the report was produced "bolixed."...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/education/27educ.html