Nearly every aspect of higher education in America needs fixing, according to a draft report of a national commission that calls for an overhaul of the student financial aid system, better cost controls by colleges and universities and more proof of results, including testing.
The report by the panel appointed last year by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was highly critical of the nation's institutions of higher education. It said there was a lack of accountability to show that students were learning, that college costs have risen too high, and that "unacceptable numbers of college graduates" were entering the workforce without skills that employers say they need.
In addition, the draft said, "rising costs, combined with a confusing, inadequate financial aid system, leave some students struggling to pay for education that, paradoxically, is of uneven and at times dubious quality."
"Among the vast and varied institutions that make up U.S. higher education," the 27-page paper added, "we have found equal parts meritocracy and mediocrity." It also added, "Change is overdue."
The 19-member commission, led by Charles Miller, a private investor and former head of the University of Texas Board of Regents, was formed to study how to increase access, affordability and accountability in higher education. Its recommendations could prove important for the country's 17 million college students and their parents.
But with panelists from different branches of higher education and from business, the commission has shown sharp divisions. Mr. Miller described the draft, released yesterday, as a "work in progress" that was being released "to further engage the public in our national dialogue." He said in a statement that it was expected that "this version will undergo significant changes and edits over the course of our discussions."
Several other members of the commission said yesterday that while they believed change was warranted, they were displeased with the tone of the paper and its sharp condemnation of academia.
"I don't think it's about blame," said Robert W. Mendenhall, president of Western Governors University, a nonprofit private online university.
The report was "more negative than it needs to be about the academy, but not as alarming as it needs to be in shining a light on the challenges in American higher education," Mr. Mendenhall said.
Robert Zemsky, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, said the draft did not reflect his views and needed significant re-writing. "The report is really by the staff and the consultants and not by the commission," Professor Zemsky said, calling the process by which the report was produced "bolixed."
Samara Yudof, deputy press secretary for the Department of Education, said Ms. Spellings had not read the draft, "but looks forward to reviewing the report this fall when the commission finishes its work and puts forward final recommendations."
Among its recommendations, the report called for "an unprecedented effort to expand college access and success" partly through substantial increases in need-based financial aid. And it said the current federal financial aid system, comprising 17 federal programs of direct aid or tax benefits, should be consolidated and streamlined.
The report said that teachers needed to be better prepared, and that colleges of education needed to be revamped. It suggested that students who were not well prepared might not belong in college.
"A troubling number of undergraduates waste time and taxpayer dollars mastering English and math skills that they should have learned in high school," it said.
The draft also advocated testing. It recommended that states require public institutions to measure student learning using tests like the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a recently devised test of student skills in math, reading and critical thinking. And it said colleges should then post the results of such tests to show how much students had learned in a manner that would allow students to compare the performance of colleges.