Clear the ivy on academia

Colleges should welcome a federal role in judging their success.

from the April 9, 2007 edition

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The schools also cite the diversity of purposes that each college offers, perhaps making it impossible to judge them by federal cookie-cutter standards.

Rather than challenge colleges directly, Ms. Spellings is using her department's regular approval process for regional, private agencies that accredit colleges, a type of peer-review regulation. (Federal student loans are tied to such approvals.) The accreditors, who largely act in secret, collect and compare vast amounts of information about each school. Sensibly, Spellings wants these assessments on websites for students to use.

The far more difficult proposal calls for more rigor in such assessments – if not outright measurements of what students actually learn.

Making public each college's effects on graduates would, indeed, help prospective students. Done badly, however, measurable national standards might also distort many nonmeasurable, long-term results of education, such as instilling a passion for learning or an ethical sense. One way around this standoff would be for the department to simply insist that accreditors and schools put forth their own objective criteria for success in learning.

Many colleges have already started benchmarking themselves better. The central issue of "what's good enough?" for schools can be addressed later, once there is more transparency in assessing college performance.

Negotiations begin again April 24, with the federal rules expected to take force by July 2008. Both students and schools that rely on federal money should welcome this call for more accountability on behalf of taxpayers.

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