The College Fix

College professors and administrators are generally regarded as having liberal political views. But they seem to have at least one opinion in common with Congressional Republicans: Higher education is over-regulated.

Regulatory compliance is estimated to cost millions of dollars and thousands of hours in labor each year. Colleges and universities must obey both state and federal laws, which are often redundant. Administrators must also contend with laws that don’t directly relate to education, such as the new health care law and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training held a hearing last week that focused on federal regulation of universities and colleges. The hearing echoed the call of newly installed Republican leaders to examine the impacts of federal regulations on institutions at all levels. In her opening statement, Subcommittee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) warned that regulations are detrimental to students.

“Onerous mandates force institutions to dedicate scarce resources toward compliance instead of focusing on meeting student needs,” she said.

Foxx singled out two regulations introduced by the Obama administration at the end of 2010 as particularly disruptive. The first would require state governments to follow federal guidelines before granting a college or university permission to operate within their state. The second would federally define what constitutes a credit hour. In Foxx’s view, this could jeopardize universities’ autonomy.

“School officials are concerned that this regulation will restrict their ability to determine the number of credit hours for each course, an inherently academic function,” she explained.

College administrators who attended the hearing found themselves in basic agreement with Foxx that regulatory burdens were too great. Mathew Denhart, the administrative director of the Center for Collegiate Affordability and Productivity, said the overall regulatory environment creates a strain for administrators who struggle to comply with both federal and state agencies.

More cooperation between the federal and state governments would be helpful,” he said. “Frequently, they want the same information, but use different forms and processes.”

Denhart said that in some ways it is ironic that academics tend to promote a more aggressive regulatory environment overall, as academic institutions themselves are suffering from extensive regulations. But he added that the college administrators who deal with regulation most directly “don’t necessarily agree with the political views of their faculties.”

Christopher Nelson, the president of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, also expressed concern about universities’ regulatory burdens. He testified before the committee, noting that to do so required compliance with regulations covering Congressional testimonies.

“The invitation [sent] to me to testify included a set of regulations covering testimony before the House Committee, regulations which I felt compelled to read before I testified,” he said. “These regulations contained over 65,000 words, 50% more words than the longest book in the Bible, which I just happened to be reading for a classroom discussion.”

For Nelson, the appropriateness of a regulation is dependent upon its focus. The management of federal funds, for instance, is fair game. But curriculum, he believes, should be left to individual institutions.

“To the extent the oversight extends to areas traditionally left to college faculties who are qualified to determine what should be taught, how, to whom, and by whom, then the oversight is more likely to be unnecessarily, even dangerously, intrusive,” he said.

Nelson suggested that if institutions fail to meet reasonable standards, they should have to comply with additional oversight. But new regulations should not extend to all institutions.

“Go after the abusers and stop trying to place a template on us all that does not fit those colleges that are doing their best to provide the education most needed by our students,” Nelson said. “Federal regulation of what our accrediting agencies are expected to demand of our colleges and universities contributes to the dumbing down of our best efforts at providing a good education.”

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