Writing today on Inside Higher Ed, my colleague Jane Shaw expresses doubt that much good could ever come from the changes Secretary Spellings was pushing.

I think that Jane’s skepticism is well founded. Believing that federal fiats will make our higher education system work better — graduate more students who really have advanced intellectual capabilities and not just meaningless credentials — is on a par with believing that fuel economy mandates actually reduce fuel consumption or that mandating higher wages will actually make poor workers wealthier.

The reason why so many colleges and universities are content to let students stumble their way through without even mastering basic skills that grade school students used to be required to have is that low standards are what many kids want. They’re used to school being easy. They no more desire a rigorous college education than an occasional jogger wants the preparation necessary to be an Olympic marathoner.

If the federal government imposes higher quality standards through accreditation, the result will mainly be clever evasive moves by schools so that they will appear to be complying. Institutions are good at fudging statistics. We see that in the way school districts in states manage to appear to meet higher standards for academic attainment without really changing anything.

I don’t think that we will see academic standards raised until large numbers of students and their parents want college to be more than it currently is:four or more years of Beer and Circus. (Hat tip to Murray Sperber.)