The Word from On High

By Richard Vedder

I am at the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, working on hammering out model state legislation on improving the reporting of college data in a consumer and policymaker friendly fashion in each state. There is widespread agreement that needs to happen, and there are important efforts afoot at state and even regional levels in this direction. I am encouraged that this aspect of the Spellings Commission report is having some real impact.

Speaking on the Spellings Commission, I attended a meeting at which President Bush spoke. Befitting my advanced age and senility, I was given a VIP seat and actually briefly chatted with the President. I said, "I was a member of the Spellings Commission on Higher Education." He said, "I bet THAT was interesting." He appeared to know what I was talking about, which was good news, but in his remarks about education, all he talked about was the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, which is bad news, since the higher ed component of our national education system probably plays a key role in determining both our prosperity as a nation and the progress of western civilization.

By the way, CCAP has now past 300 blogs. You may question the quality of what we have done over the last year in commenting on American higher education, but the quantity is pretty good for an organization that has had 1.5 workers for most of its existence (although that number is starting to grow).