The College Fix

Senator Mike Lee writes for The Federalist about his new plan to open up more accredited vocational education options for the middle class. It starts by giving more oversight power to state governments:

The challenge of American higher education policy today is reconciling two seemingly contradictory facts.

First, higher education is more important to economic opportunity and middle-class security than ever before.

And second, the standard credential of higher education – the bachelor’s degree – is being devalued by the diminishing quality and exploding costs of undergraduate education.

How is it possible that higher education is becoming more valuable and a bachelor’s degree less? Because they aren’t the same thing…

Most progressives think ever-more taxpayer assistance will make up for any policy dysfunction. But we’ve tried that, and all we’ve done is inflate a bubble.

It seems to me the answer isn’t more funding or lower rates for existing Title IV programs. The answer is to make more kinds of students and more kinds of education eligible for them.

So last week, I introduced legislation to do just that.

The Higher Education Reform and Opportunity Act would give states the power to create their own, alternative systems of accrediting Title IV-eligible higher education providers.

State participation would be totally voluntary, and would in no way interfere with the current system. State-based accreditation would augment, not replace, the current regime. (College presidents can rest assured that if they like their regional accreditor, they can keep it.)

But the state-based alternatives would not be limited to accrediting formal, degree-issuing “colleges.” They could additionally accredit specialized programs, apprenticeships, professional certification classes, competency tests, and even individual courses…

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