December 28, 2005
Charles Miller, Chair
Commission on the Future of Higher Education
c/o Ms. Kristen Vetri
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202-3510
Re: Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education
Dear Chairman Miller :
As a national association of faculty in operation since 1915, we are following the proceedings of the Education Secretary’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education with great interest. An important part of our mission – to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good – is clearly in accord with the Commission’s charge to examine issues of access, quality, affordability, and accountability in higher education.
Access, Quality and Affordability. The AAUP is an active supporter of student financial aid and other programs that encourage and underwrite access to higher education for all able students. We advocate high standards of quality in our work with accrediting agencies; a recent program focus was to urge that distance education courses be held to the same high academic standards as traditional classroom education. Our concern about the affordability of a college education led us to engage actively in the examination of the cost of college with the Congressional Commission on the Cost of Higher Education. As you may know, the report issued in 1998 by that Commission found that investments in faculty had not been a “cost driver,” as the cost of faculty had actually gone down while the cost of college administration, infrastructure, and capital investments had risen substantially during the decades considered in the study.
We are particularly concerned that students today – especially those who represent the first generation in their families to attend college, and those “non-traditional” students who combine college studies with full-time employment and family responsibilities – have access to higher education at least equal in quality to the education that was available to previous generations of students.
Accountability. Given the degree of accord between our objectives and the Commission’s, we were somewhat taken aback at the hostile tone that, according to reports, seemed to dominate your December 8-9 meeting. Most of the harsh comments, particularly from your opening speaker, Senator Lamar Alexander, and from you, were concerned with accountability. The inaccurate and unfair claim that faculty, and by derivation, colleges and universities, are “accountable to no one” seemed to rule the day. Let me explore that notion with you.
Faculty members are accountable for their work in many ways – much more so than most professionals in private industry. Their work is reviewed by peers in their field every time they propose to publish an article or book, and every time they seek funding for a new project. Their work is reviewed within their academic departments – usually annually – for salary and promotion considerations. Even after a seven-year probation and a rigorous re-examination of the credentials and accomplishments, many colleges and universities require additional periodic “post tenure reviews” for all faculty. And finally, their work is constantly reviewed by their toughest critics – their faculty colleagues and their students.
Pressures on faculty for higher grades and easier student workloads come from several directions, including from students, parents, influential alumni, and sometimes from administrators. Counter-balancing pressures for more rigor and respect for their academic disciplines come from their peers in those disciplines. Conscientious faculty members – and here I include the vast majority of my faculty colleagues – know that their ultimate responsibility is to the common good. They struggle within the resources and time they are allotted to meet that highest responsibility.
Comprehensive Education. Faculty responsibility for education for the common good includes a concern for comprehensive education that prepares students for lifelong learning, by providing a context for new questions, imparting tools for inquiries and proofs, and evoking an appreciation of highly developed contributions to creative, scientific, and social knowledge. While a high quality college and university education does not train a student for a specific place in a specific industry, it does prepare a student to learn how to learn, and thus increases the likelihood of a positive contribution in a wide range of fields.
Variety of Colleges and Universities. In this country, colleges and universities have pursued these responsibilities as an independent sector within the society. The independence of the higher education sector, and the great variety of institutions among our colleges and universities, is a hallmark of a thriving and highly regarded educational “system” that has, for centuries, fed our nation’s economy with the creativity and skill that arise from unfettered thinking and learning. When we picture this rich assortment of higher education institutions being called to toe a single line of government- mandated “outcomes” we have to question the wisdom of such an objective. Nationalization of higher education might be appropriate in a newly developing country, or in one in which the higher education system was completely nonfunctional. We question whether the Commission is prepared to conclude that our higher education system fits either of these categories.
Evaluating Responses. Acknowledging the challenges that the Commission has already observed, including high costs to students, long time to degree, lower degree-completion rate, and now, even a lower literacy rate among college graduates, we encourage the Commission to seek logical responses, based on complete information. For example, both you and Lamar Alexander have suggested that federal funds be withheld from colleges and universities in order to promote better education for students. At some point during your deliberations, I am sure you will examine the recent history of federal and state support of higher education instruction. (Note that the Secretary of Education’s rosy report about federal funds for higher education included funds to support research; this figure is only moderately relevant to the Commission’s specific concern about resources for teaching.)
In fact, over the past few decades, public financial support for higher education has already decreased substantially. In his December 9, 2005 remarks, Senator Alexander pointed out some of the pressures on state governments that keep states from “properly fund[ing] colleges and universities.” You see the results very plainly: higher costs for students, lower investment in faculty, more teaching by graduate students and part-time instructors.
The AAUP hopes that the Commission will open these matters for candid discussion with faculty, and will seek solutions that will support high-quality, comprehensive education for all able students. I hope also that the Commission will learn more about the range of educational opportunities available to students in this country and support the continuation of the rich variety of approaches that continue to attract and educate students for their lives as workers, as citizens, and as leaders.
Sincerely,
Roger W. Bowen
General Secretary