Substance vs. Symbols

Accountability

April 14, 2015

By Mary Nguyen Barry

If Marco Rubio wants to establish himself as the substantive Republican alternative to Jeb Bush, he’s already off to a good start in the higher education space.  In K-12 policy, he has said and done very little as compared to Bush, whose extensive record will no doubt be scrutinized carefully.

 Rubio Pic

But among the challengers to Jeb Bush, Rubio outpaces his declared Republican competitors in terms of substantive higher education policy. Consider that his declared opponents include Ted Cruz, who announced his candidacy at one of the worst colleges in Virginia for underrepresented minority and low-income students. And then there’s Rand Paul who swears to abolish the Department of Education and is still trying to brush over comments he made questioning the legal underpinning of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The fact is, neither Cruz nor Paul have offered substantive education policy. While both make vague references to “school choice” here and here, neither senator has made this a legislative priority. Both simply co-sponsor bills (which Salon calls “D.C.’s favorite time-wasting scam”), which have gone nowhere.  Paul himself has yet to attend a single education hearing this year despite being on the Senate HELP committee for the past four years.

Rubio, by contrast, has shown some substance on higher education whether or not you agree with those positions.  For example, he’s been working on a bipartisan bill to give students reliable data at the individual student level for every college. He wants to show how much students can expect to make compared to how much they can expect to owe in student loans.  He supports automatically enrolling all students in an income-based repayment (IBR) system for student loans, accreditation reform, and a host of other relatively obscure issues that are important to the operation of our higher education system.

But if Rubio or anyone else wants to go further, they should take a look at what is happening at Florida State.

Florida State offers a stellar example of a high-performing college in terms of relatively affordable degree completion for all students. It consistently has shown a dedication to equity.  There are no access or graduation rate gaps between underrepresented minority and white students at Florida State.  Among similar colleges nationwide serving students of similar SAT and GPA scores, FSU ranks 2nd in its enrollment of minority students and low-income students.  It ranks 1st with a virtual zero gap in graduation rates between minority students as compared to their white peers (74 percent vs. 76 percent, respectively). Meanwhile, Florida State’s peer Michigan State has one of the largest graduation gaps (25 percentage points) between white and minority students.

FSU vs. MSU URM Grad Gaps

So perhaps as Rubio hits the campaign trail, he’ll consider unveiling an higher ed accountability proposal at FSU. Because for an “ideas” candidate, this seems like one of the best bipartisan ideas out there for higher education reform.