By Richard Ekman

The standard view is that when a college is considering change in a policy or program, the faculty will meet for discussion and, sooner or later, their collective wisdom will be reflected in a report or program that is better than what would be produced by other means. The inherent assumptions are that there are no time limits, and that the collective knowledge of the faculty is comprehensive. In reality, however, colleges and universities follow certain shortcuts. There is great diversity among institutions and in their decision-making practices, even among institutions of the same size and shape. Some decisions remain the sole province of senior administrators with little or no consultation. Others are discussed by the faculty or faculty committees, but with short timelines and delimited options. And some topics are considered beyond the expertise of anyone on campus and are dealt with by consultants, whose views are then accepted or rejected by the president or provost. There are also instances when a single, transformational leader can propose an agenda based on a singular vision and build the support for its rapid adoption.

Nonetheless, by and large the process that keeps the faculty front-and-center leads to very good results, especially when time is adequate for gathering information from experts outside the institution and then further discussion by the faculty. Among other good results, this process allows for significant faculty “buy-in” as the discussion continues so that the results, when final, are not a surprise to anyone. No college or university can progress very far without considerable consensus among faculty and administrators, and sometimes also trustees, alumni, and/or students.

But the liabilities of academic decision-making are real. It is, for example, not nearly as fast as a “top-down” directive approach would be. In a world in which institutions compete for students, the speed of a college in launching a new program or changing a policy can be critical. When questions are raised by policymakers beyond the campus about institutional effectiveness, colleges can be perceived as too slow to respond.

The report of Secretary Spellings’ Commission on the Future of Higher Education recommends a number of changes in colleges and universities. Some are useful; others are ill-advised. Unfortunately, the report does not reflect an understanding of how change actually takes place in colleges and universities—and this is a significant flaw. As a result, the Commission’s ideas are unlikely to be implemented or, if implemented, to be long-lived.

Some of the Commission’s recommendations call for Congressional or Executive Branch mandate and are needlessly heavy-handed in their unilateral approach. No one should want a system of higher education in the United States that is run directly by the national government. Other countries with nationalized systems of higher education offer sufficiently negative examples.

Moreover, the Commission report rarely capitalizes on the significant progress already being made by the voluntary actions of colleges and universities, individually and together, on many of the issues that the Commission thinks are most problematic:

Expand access. The rate of college-going in the U.S. has grown enormously in a generation, and includes greatly increased numbers of students from groups that previously had low participation rates in higher education. Of course, more must be done to increase the graduation rates of African Americans and Hispanic Americans, but the records of colleges and universities working on their own are very impressive. The Commission should build on the fact that, despite the inadequate preparation of many students by high schools, colleges have not taken the approach of admitting only the well-prepared students. Most institutions are committed to widening access, taking admissions risks, and providing a lot more non-governmental financial aid.

Overhaul the financial aid system. What we call the financial aid system is complicated and bureaucratic, to be sure. But these circumstances are largely a result of incremental changes over the years made by Congress and the Department of Education. Don’t blame the colleges for federal policies. The Commission is also far too casual in saying that it wants “need-based” aid to trump “merit” aid and, at the same time, it wants colleges to focus on training experts in critical fields in order to enhance U.S. competitiveness with other countries. Surely some financial aid needs to be targeted to ensure that the very brightest students, irrespective of family-income levels, study the critical fields.

Control costs and improve productivity. The assumption by the Commission that all higher education is the same is incorrect: the University of Phoenix may spend less per student than Princeton, Hiram, or St. Edward’s, but Phoenix offers those students significantly less as well. Large state universities spend less per student than small liberal arts colleges, and the small colleges have much higher degree-completion rates, especially for “at risk” students. Many colleges and universities have already reined in cost increases, improved their graduation rates, and reduced attrition.

Increase accountability. Here, too, much is already underway without the benefit or pressure of a Commission report. All the regional accreditors have, beginning a few years ago, put more emphasis on “outcomes.” CIC and three dozen of its member colleges and universities have been utilizing the Collegiate Learning Assessment for several years, and some 300 have used the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). This openness to assessment in higher education runs across independent and public institutions and their associations. The National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities have already said that, in principle, they also favor more outcomes assessment.

Add transparency to reports of institutional effectiveness. The Education Department’s COOL website already provides plenty of information, and dozens of commercial college guides are available, with statistics that allow comparisons on key characteristics. The Commission suggests the statewide “Measuring Up” reports as a model, but these are gross aggregations of results for all the institutions in a state that mask the differing records of individual institutions, and make it impossible to see, for example, that most private institutions do a superior job in comparison with public institutions (for students with similar characteristics at matriculation). It’s baffling why anyone would think that the federal government can administer a “privacy-protected” information system, given the government’s dismal record in protecting the information it already has on veterans and many other citizens.

Embrace innovation. Private foundations and federal agencies such as the Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation have been funding innovative programs for 40 years. Many of these grants led to successes that have been replicated at institutions throughout the country. Some have led to failures. Many others have led to successes that were not sustained by institutions because they were too expensive or their biggest advocates left the institution. The problem is not that innovation has been absent before or is lacking today; it is that successful innovations can be difficult to institutionalize.

And this point takes us to the crux of what is wrong with the Commission’s report. A college can decide on its own to make changes, usually after lengthy, widely participatory discussion. Once a decision has been made to change, the government can help implement the change through grants, making favorable results come faster or be more pervasive.
Foundation and federal grants can also offer stimuli to pursue new directions and provide inducements for colleges. But change that is well considered, that is understood and supported by the faculty and administrators of a college, and that is long-lasting cannot be mandated by the government without running the risk of creating in America a system of higher education that looks like the politicized, rigid, and lesser-quality systems found in too many other parts of the world.

For 25 years both Democrats and Republicans have sometimes found it expedient to criticize colleges and universities. For this and other reasons, these institutions have lost much public understanding of why they operate as they do. The Commission’s report plays to those impulses. But if the Commission is really interested in change, it ought to try harder to build on what is already working. A federal mandate will not make implementation of either worthy or wrong-headed changes any more likely to succeed.