The U.S. Secretary of Education issued the recommendations of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education Sept. 26 to less-than-enthusiastic reactions from the higher education community.

After releasing numerous trial drafts this summer, and rethinking a few inflammatory characterizations, the Commission pulled its punches in the final report. Despite that, one commission member, David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, declined to sign it, objecting to some one-size-fits-all generalizations that would not apply to the varied representation of institutions in higher education.

The Commission's stated focus was on access, affordability, quality and accountability. Throughout the hearing and deliberation process, the AFT had been concerned that the commission would make recommendations that would impose features of the No Child Left Behind Act's testing and accountability agenda. Some of those concerns proved to be well-founded, leading AFT president Edward J. McElroy to register the union's disappointment with the final report.

The commission recommended:

• increasing college participation through better K-12 participation and cooperation with the higher ed world;
• increasing affordability by expecting colleges to cut costs and improve productivity through better avenues for two-year college transfer, better use of technology, greater recognition of college courses offered at the high school level and lifting productivity hindering regulations;
• streamlining financial aid programs to simplify applications, increase need-based aid and facilitate private loans for middle- and upper-income families;
• increasing accountability by having colleges collect and make transparent their data on cost, price and student success.

McElroy commended Secretary Margaret Spellings for creating the commission and focusing on the needs of students, but said the report deserves a grade of "incomplete."  The recommendations miss the boat by not attending to two of the most significant issues in higher education—the academic staffing crisis and the decline in funding by the states. "The commission should have strongly condemned the decline in recent years in state support for higher education institutions," he said. "The impact of this decline in funding has been compounded by the federal government cutting $12 billion from the federal student aid program in the most recent budget."

McElroy also lamented the commission's neglect of institutions' increasing reliance on and exploitation of part-time and adjunct faculty. "If the commission had included at least one representative from a faculty organization, an issue like the staffing crisis would not have been ignored," he said. [Barbara McKenna, AFT press release]

September 27, 2006