The federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education has indeed come out with a very disappointing second draft of its report. Inside Higher Ed is running a good piece today with various folks’ reactions, including Richard Vedder’s—he aptly called the second draft “sugar-coated”—as well as Anne’s:
Neal, who testified before but is not a member of the commission, said in an e-mail that the first draft’s focus on “important curricular issues — and their connection to the serious cultural illiteracy that the commission recognizes — are utterly supplanted by a studiously process-oriented focus on how to make colleges and universities more accessible, more affordable, and more accountable.”
“In a time of global competition and conflict, transparency and assessments don’t matter if the product is not worthy,” Neal added. “Access and completion rates are simply irrelevant if the education received is incoherent and fails to guarantee the common ground of training and outlook on which our society depends. Yet the commission remains silent on these critical points.”
Read the whole thing. There is certainly much more to come on this story.