Accountability in American Higher Education

Three years after U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling's national commission on higher education and nearly a decade after No Child Left Behind revolutionized k-12 accountability, there is little agreement on what accountability in higher education should look like. While more students are enrolling in (and failing to complete) postsecondary education than ever before, scholars and policymakers have paid far less attention to questions of how well colleges are teaching students and helping them earn degrees while simultaneously contributing new research and scholarship. In Accountability in American Higher Education prominent academics, entrepreneurs, and journalists assess the obstacles to, and potential opportunities for, accountability in higher education in America. Key issues include new measures of college student learning, power education data systems, implications for faculty tenure, accreditation, for-profit higher education, community colleges, and the political dynamics of reform. This volume provides insightful analysis that legislators, administrators, and consumers can use to engage institutions of higher education in the difficult but necessary conversation of accountability.