WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the ongoing push for more accountability and transparency in higher education, researchers released a new “report card” Tuesday that shows which states lead and trail on a variety of postsecondary measures.
Authors of the report – titled “Leaders & Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Postsecondary Education” – say while the data used to compile the report is lacking in many ways, the report is meant to illuminate how effectively states are spending public money on higher education, and what exactly taxpayers and employers are getting in return.
They say they believe by publishing more performance data, such as how well higher education is meeting labor market demand, that it will drive institutions of higher learning and the states that govern them to get better at what they do and to do so more efficiently.
“We think it’s incredibly important to think about how cost-effective your system is,” Andrew Kelly, lead researcher for the report and an education policy studies research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, or AEI, said during an overview of the report Tuesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at AEI and a contributor to the report, said states that got labeled as “laggards” in the report might become “leaders” if consumers and policymakers could compare systems on the basis of outcomes, such as completion rates and employment in their post-college lives.
“You like to know if students get to finish the line, whether the students who get to the finish line are employed,” Hess said. “I think the provision of that information would have a (transformative effect) on higher education.”
Hess stressed that the change he envisions is more likely to take place because the publishing of such data will make institutional leaders more conscious of their performance.
