Letter to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education

May 2, 2006

Dear Commissioners:

On behalf of the National Education Association (NEA) and its 2.8 million members, including more than 150,000 faculty and other education professionals working on university and community college campuses across the nation, I am writing to express our concern with a paper released this month by the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. 

The paper, titled "Frequently Asked Questions About College Costs," contains unsubstantiated assertions throughout that faculty are responsible for the increase in costs and that a proprietary business model with part-time labor replacing professional educators is the solution.

• NEA believes that faculty members in higher education should have primary responsibility for the curriculum.  The paper argues against faculty responsibility or ownership of "all curricular decisions" as part of its case that "colleges are not managed with efficiency as the primary value." In contrast, NEA believes that it is most efficient and, frankly, the best business practice, to have those trained and equipped to make the proper management decisions in a position to do so. The academics of an institution -- the faculty -- are those most knowledgeable to make curricular decisions. Having non-academics making these decisions is simply not good management.
  
  
  
• NEA believes that faculty work is a full-time profession.  Throughout the paper the superiority of part-time faculty is advocated because it ostensibly saves money and gives management greater flexibility. The acknowledgement that there is a debate on whether this shift affects the quality of education is given mere lip-service. It is more difficult for faculty to advise students when they are not paid to do so, or are not provided the necessary office space. The quality of education is affected when faculty are forced to teach at multiple institutions to make ends meet and are not paid for the necessary hours of course preparation. 
  
  
  
• NEA believes that tenure and academic due process accompanied by faculty self-governance protect the rights of all faculty members and promote the quality of the education.  The paper argues that "colleges are labor-intensive," with faculty salaries "especially expensive." But a 1998 report by the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education, "Straight Talk about College Costs and Prices," found that there is "little evidence to suggest…that changes in faculty hiring practices or workload have driven up college costs in the past decade." The Commission's paper further argues that "tenure is costly" and was "originally conceived as a means to protect 'academic freedom' but that "it has evolved into a system to protect job security." There is no acknowledgement that the protection of academic freedom requires job security.
  
  
  
• NEA believes that all functions of the faculty calling -- teaching, research, and service -- are critical to the quality of education. The precise mix of the three aspects of faculty work differs depending on institutional circumstances, but faculty almost always engage in all three aspects. The paper argues that the business model used by proprietary, for-profit schools is a more efficient model for higher education to emulate. Celebrating the lack of a "research function" ignores the fact that this is what enables faculty to stay current in their discipline, keep their courses relevant, and provide students with the quality education they deserve. The claim is made that "the reward structure for these [proprietary] institutions is directly related to student success" without a clear understanding of what constitutes "student success." Surely the academic quality of what a student learns is a factor in student success.

Although we were initially concerned that no representative of any organized faculty group was named to the Commission, we have taken the initiative to participate to the extent possible in this national dialogue. Just recently, for example, staff of the Commission participated in our annual NEA Higher Education Conference. In addition, two of our leaders, Catherine A. Boudreau, President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and Len Paolillo, chairman of NEA's Legislative Committee, testified at the Commission's March 20, 2006, hearing in Boston. 

As both Boudreau and Paolillo testified in Boston, NEA's paramount concerns in higher education remain student access and the quality of the educational offering. Boudreau quoted an excerpt from the 1947 report by an earlier commission, the Truman Commission on Higher Education, deliberating the role of higher education in the United States :

[E]ducation is the making of the future.  Its role in a democratic society is that of critic and leader as well as servant; its task is not merely to meet the demands of the present but to alter those demands if necessary, so as to keep them always suited to democratic ideals. Perhaps its most important role is to serve as an instrument of social transition and its responsibilities are defined in terms of the kind of civilization society hopes to build….

This vision demands a broader and more informed discussion of the role of higher education in our society. We need to revive and support the concept of higher education as a public good, not just an individual benefit. We need to ensure that higher education is accessible and affordable. To do that, we need to increase the government's role in the funding of higher education. Low-income families have been losing economic ground at an alarming pace and have found it increasingly difficult to send their children to college. Student grant aid has not kept up with the increasing price of attendance. 

I look forward to continuing this dialogue and seeing the Commission reflect more comprehensively the voices and the peer-reviewed research from the best and the brightest that higher education has to offer our nation.

Sincerely,

Reg Weaver, President
National Education Association