We recently reported on an issue raised by former Assistant Secretary for Post Secondary Education, Diane Auer Jones found in The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HR 4137). All institutions of higher education that provide student housing must now report students who are vacant from their dorm space for 24 hours or more as missing. We decided to take a look at this legislation for more outrages. First, this measure was buried deep in Section 488. However, the total measure consists of 431 pages of gobblety-goop micromanaging virtually all aspect of higher education other than explicity addressing cirriculum or tenure.
This shameful prime example of legislative excess was established simply to provide federal support for helping low and moderate income students attend college but in doing so tramples on virtually every square foot of every college campus.
What struck us as most concerning about this law is the depth and range Federal regulation extends its grasp upon how colleges and universities conduct their business simply as the strings attached for the schools accepting students who receive Federal loans or other measures of Federal funding.
Read all about it if you have too much time on your hands or have a real fetish for reading about government abuse. Do you think any of our elected "leaders" read this whole measure. Here it is courtesy of govtrack.us.
These provisions are unbelievably specific in some instances and require tremendous resources to impliment, monitor, assure compliance, and report upon. As such, the overhead to the schools is enormous from having adequate legal counsel either on staff or contracted to interpret the legislation and make sure the school is compliant in every aspect. On top of that, the manpower and resource requirements to manage these requirements is substantial. On top of that, just by the size of the task load imposed by this law, so much administrative and leadership time is devoted to simply following this ridiculous work of bureaucratic interference run wild instead of focusing on the key issues that all schools should be devoted to promoting: quality education and a good learning environment for students; expert, timely, creative, and far-reaching research for the benefit of society, business and industry; and recruiting, developing, and retaining the best, most challenging faculty possible.
Is it any wonder that college costs have gone up so dramtically in the past 30 years far beyond the rate of inflation by multiple factors? Likewise, is it also not surprising that the college environment is being overtaken by personnel on all levels who have no problem with a big government approach to all aspects of the human condition. Is it any coincidence that college faculties have become the bastion of extreme left politics conservatives or those with traditional values need not apply.
American leadership has had quality higher education as one of its key foundations where our institutions of higher education were sought by the best and brightest around the world for their studies. Today, the product is increasingly being compromised, losing its sense of mission, and beginning to lose its lead over what is provided in other countries.
Our colleges and universities must be the best the world has to offer in providing expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics while continuing to provide an outstanding liberal arts education where schooling is not so much as learning the right answers for some master exam but asking the right questions about life in the real world.
Sadly, our great institutions are being reduced to essentially vocational traning facillities where every "i" is dotted and "t" crossed with fervent political correctness blindly complying with the multitude of overregulation by the Federal Government.
No comments:
Post a Comment