Draft Report on the State of Higher Education in the US Made Public. (July 2, 2006)

    The US Department of Education has made public a "very rough draft" of what is intended to become by the Bush administration the US' "national strategy" for higher education.

The document as it stands, points to "glaring deficiencies" in US post secondary education.

Its principal criticisms:

• too few students matriculating from high school who could benefit from post secondary education attend tertiary institutions;

• deficiencies in reading, writing and maths caused by poor secondary school teaching is undermining tertiary teaching;

• the increasing costs of tertiary education;

• university graduates are entering the work force too often without the skills they need.

With regard to the matter of  "deficiencies in reading, writing and maths", in the United States 28% of college and university students took remedial courses in both 1995 and 2000, and the average length of time spent in remediation had increased over the interval.

The final draft of the report is expected in August this year.