US Federal Government's Commission on the Future of Higher Education Approves Final Report Urging a Broad Shake-up of American Higher Education. (August 13, 2006)

    This past Thursday 18 of the 19 members on the Commission on the Future of Higher Education voted to sign the report which calls for public universities to measure learning with standardized tests, federal monitoring of college quality and sweeping changes in financial aid. The sole abstainer on the commission set up last year by US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is David Ward who as president of the largest association of colleges and universities was the most powerful representative of the higher education establishment on the commission.

In a statement Dr Ward said the report was, "a shot across the bow" and while academia would take it seriously, he wanted to remain "free to contest" it. Several proposals, including those on testing and financial aid, aroused fierce opposition from university leaders and at points divided the panel.

The chairman of the commission, Charles Miller, an investor and a former chairman of the University of Texas Regents, had indicated at the beginning of the commissions deliberations that he wanted to develop "a punchy report that would rattle academia with warnings of crisis."

In the event the report went forward to the Education Secretary after six drafts watering down passages that had drawn criticism and eliminating one just last week, written by Mr. Miller, that had encouraged expanding private loans as a share of student financial aid.

And proposal on standardized tests was also weakened at the last moment. Previous drafts said that "states should require" public universities to use standardized tests, but the final version said simply that universities "should measure student learning" with standardized tests.

While all the panel members who participated in a meeting on August 10 at the Education Department headquarters expressed unanimity on some

Principal Recommendation of  US Commission on the Future of Higher Education

 points, including that the report correctly identified critical challenges like increasing access to higher education for

 poor students and holding institutions more accountable for students who drop out or graduate with few skills, they were split as to how the report's recommendations should be implemented.

The commission chairman told reporters that the next step should be more "national dialogue" with governors and corporate leaders.

One of the damning conclusions of the report is, "Too many Americans just aren’t getting the education that they need," and, "There are disturbing signs that many students who do earn degrees have not actually mastered the reading, writing and thinking skills we expect of college graduates."

Among the criticisms of the report is that of the Association of American Universities, which represents some 60 top American research universities. The AAU noted that the report "deals almost exclusively with undergraduate education.

"What is needed," according to Robert Berdahl, a former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and current president of the AAU, "Is something much richer, with a more nuanced understanding of the educational engagement and how it is undertaken."

The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, which represents 900 private institutions including liberal arts colleges, major research universities and church- and other faith-related colleges, attacked the recommendation to develop a national database to follow individual students' progress as a way of holding colleges accountable for students' success. It considers the proposal a dangerous intrusion on privacy. "Our members find this idea chilling."

And according to The New York Times several groups said the report spent much ink discussing increases in students' work skills, while slighting the mission of colleges and universities to educate students as citizens.