College administrators tend to be considered a liberal lot, but there appears to be at least one notable outlier: their support of the Obama higher education record.
Perhaps that’s because President Obama is the first not to hew to traditional party lines around higher education policy – where Democrats typically support greater financial aid resources and Republicans typically support laissez-faire reform. Instead, President Obama has extended the discussion to encapsulate not only college access and affordability issues, but also college quality.
It is the insistence on quality part of Obama’s record that has gotten the most pushback from college leaders. But what’s striking is the overwhelming levels of opposition among private nonprofit college presidents, according to new survey results by Inside Higher Ed and Gallup.
In Inside Higher Ed’s sixth annual survey of over 700 college presidents, private college presidents unilaterally gave the President a worse grade across every single higher ed issue than their public college and university counterparts. These issues ranged anywhere from student aid and attention on low-income students to regulation of higher education.
It’s striking because Obama is perhaps the first President to call these colleges’ bluff. For decades now, many private nonprofit colleges have been notoriously taking advantage of the information gap on college quality. Because no one knows what quality in higher education means or looks like, many private colleges give off the appearance of quality with flashy inputs – like fancy buildings, lavish dorms, lazy rivers, sports, top faculty, and smart students. Ironically, these expensive inputs raise the cost of college for students and families, thereby creating a greater disconnect between price and quality.
It’s what some experts cynically call the “Absolut Rolex” plan. Why charge less when you can charge more – and give off the appearance of a better brand? All vodka tastes the same. All watches tell time. But luxury brands matter to consumers. So the solution? Create luxury.
Related: What’s Killing Higher Ed?
Indeed, if private colleges truly are high quality, then they should have nothing to be afraid of. As David Bergeron, the vice president at the Center for American Progress said, he found the private colleges’ criticisms “odd.”
Or maybe these nonprofits do have something to hide. One would think that the looming collapse of some small regional private colleges like Sweet Briar would make it more urgent than ever for private colleges to embrace the opportunity to portray their value to the larger public. Even the Inside Higher Ed survey found that only 15 percent of non-elite private college presidents felt confident in the sustainability of their sector’s business model over 10 years. Yet opposition to measurement on quality indicators was highest among private baccalaureate college presidents (those at institutions that grant only bachelor’s degrees and not beyond), many of which are are non-selective, small, regional, and tuition-dependent.
It’s time that private colleges recognize that they can’t be exempt from federal oversight simply because they’re “private” and not “public.” By nature of accepting at least $30 billion in federal student aid – ranging from 15 percent of Pell Grant dollars to over 50 percent of Perkins Loan dollars – the federal government has the obligation to ensure that taxpayer money going to these institutions is positively enhancing student outcomes, particularly those who come from low-income and middle-class families.
The Obama Administration’s biggest mark in the higher education quality field so far has been its regulatory efforts on the for-profit college industry (video summary here). But that was low-hanging fruit. The bigger issue is how much do colleges of all tax statuses – non-profit and for-profit – and colleges of all levels of control – public and private – advance student learning in exchange for students’ and taxpayers very sizable private and public investment?
Related: It’s Time for a “Higher Ed NAEP”