The big drive to produce more graduates to fill all those new jobs our economy requires has hit a snag (or maybe a “Snagfest”). One is a bunch of demographic trends that are putting fewer students into the pipeline. For another, our economy is not creating a lot of jobs, so it makes less sense for many young people who did not pursue a college education in the past to do so now. Many of them are responding in an amazing way—instead of listening to the rhetoric that tells them to go to college, they are foregoing higher ed!
This does not make some people happy, especially the politicians who have been pushing for more graduates to please their academic and corporate supporters. The Obama administration is among them, and they’re not taking this new trend lying down. It appears as if they are going to demand that accrediting agencies start using graduation rates as a criterion for accreditation. Since accreditation is the key to receive federal funds, the federales are in the drivers seat: accreditors derive their power from their role as gatekeeper to federal money, and the universities “can’t not” please the accreditors.
George Leef discusses the Obama administration’s latest attempt to make higher education serve their purposes.