Monday, October 03, 2005
Bad Education
My first original piece for Tom Paine.com is up today. It's about the Department of Education's new Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Even though I used the editorial space to point out all of the commission's flaws ( a somewhat narrow definition of "21st century" as "engineering", no funding increases, the possibility of testing and accountability measures for colleges) I still think it provides a good opportunity for other education advocates to talk about what we would like to see change in the higher education sector. I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to involve CEOs in a discussion with academics, to find out what experience and qualifications they want from new hires. (Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, in particular, are doing interesting things in this area.) And government and colleges could stand to have a more functional relationship where the value of higher education is cherished, instead of it being seen as a "cash cow" or "budget balancer" for state budgets.
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Anya, I very much enjoy your writing. In this article, you write: "He's up against Richard Vedder of the American Enterprise Institute, an economist who has written a book and testified before Congress on his very convenient view that federal student aid is bad for affordability, because it encourages colleges to raise prices, and should therefore be curbed immediately." Doesn't Mr. Vedder's view have a great deal of credibility? If possible, please say a little more about why you disagree with Mr. Vedder. Thanks.
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