Education Secretary Urges Increase in Need-Based Aid, College Accountability

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has outlined a five-point action plan to enhance higher-education access, based on the recommendations of a bipartisan Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

In an address to the National Press Club, Spellings stressed the urgency of enhancing the nation’s higher-education system. “Over the years, we’ve invested tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and just hoped for the best,” Spellings said. “We deserve better.”

The education secretary proposed the following five action steps:

• Enhance college preparation by expanding the principles of the No Child Left Behind initiative and holding high schools accountable for results. Spellings also urged continued efforts to align high-school standards with college work and to increase access to college-preparatory classes, such as Advanced Placement.
• Reform the student financial-aid system by streamlining the process, cutting the application time in half, and notifying students of their eligibility for aid earlier than the spring of their senior year to help families plan. She also called for an increase in need-based aid while holding college-cost increases in line.
• Help students and families shop for colleges by developing a higher-education-information system using student-level data that already is available. Spellings said the information could be used to redesign the Education Department’s college-search Web site to more accurately address the specific questions of individual students and parents.
• Make colleges more accountable for results by providing matching funds to postsecondary institutions and states that collect and report student-learning outcomes.
• Place greater emphasis on learning in the accreditation process. Spellings indicated she would meet with the accreditors in November to begin that discussion.

Spellings announced that she would convene a summit meeting next spring to review the full slate of recommendations from the Commission on the Future of Higher Education.