CHICAGO
To keep up with international competition, U.S. colleges and universities need to set a deadline to educate 10 million more people by 2012 and particularly focus on those from low-income and minority groups as well as “nontraditional” adult students, said Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.
She said that if higher education officials don’t act, Congress and state lawmakers may step in and force mandates that could be ill-informed and based on politicking.
“We must change and adapt and respond. And we must do so immediately,” said Spellings, who spoke in Chicago on Friday at the second annual national summit addressing affordability, accountability and accessibility in higher education.
The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems has estimated that the country needs to educate at least 20 million more Americans by 2025, but Spellings said she wants to set a deadline by the next presidential election in 2012.
Spellings said that the main problem in higher education is not the lack of resources. Recently, the Department of Education returned $500 million in Academic Competitiveness/SMART grants to the U.S. Treasury because it couldn’t find enough college-ready students from low-income families to take them.
