Holding Colleges Accountable: Is Success Measurable?
With almost 40% of the nation's college-age students in some form of post-secondary education — and tuition costs as high as they've ever been — we don't really have a handle on what students learn at university. Or whether they're learning anything at all. Kevin Carey, policy director at the Washington think tank Education Sector, believes that many colleges do a bad job of 1) teaching students and 2) getting them to graduate. An essay he wrote for the December issue of Democracy is making waves in the higher-ed world because it describes how a lot of colleges are keeping student-assessment data confidential. He spoke with TIME education correspondent Gilbert Cruz about why parents — and public officials — should demand more accountability from colleges. Gilbert Cruz, Time Magazine, Jan. 8, 2010