On Monday afternoon, Annual Meeting attendees joined Mike Reilly, AACRAO Executive Director, and David Bergeron, Senior Fellow for Postsecondary Education at the Center for American Progress and former longtime U.S. Education Department official, for a plenary conversation about the current state of higher education, covering a wide range of topics including accreditation reform, reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, financial aid, the November elections and the future of the department.
Bergeron touched on accreditation reform, advocating for a tighter relationship to the labor market. He spoke about the prospect of a Higher Education Act renewal in the next few years, focusing on a number of topics that currently have bipartisan support, including FAFSA simplification, deregulation, and innovation.
Bergeron, a strong advocate for college access, spoke about his long and distinguished career in higher education and his desire to dispel the myth that government stands between the people and their dreams. For Bergeron, it is the government, and the Education Department, in particular, that are uniquely positioned to help all citizens achieve their goals through higher education.
One way to help more people gain access to colleges and universities is to reform the federal financial aid system. According to Bergeron, the government needs to inform students of what aid they might receive as early as the 8th grade in order to help families make better informed decisions about their college choices. He also pushed for reforms in the collection of student loans and called for significant reinvestments in state aid for higher education.
Bergeron touched on accreditation reform, advocating for a tighter relationship to the labor market. He spoke about the prospect of a Higher Education Act renewal in the next few years, focusing on a number of topics that currently have bipartisan support, including FAFSA simplification, deregulation, and innovation.
The purpose of the Education Department is to make society more equitable, argued Bergeron. Through good and thoughtful policies and programs, the government can positively impact the lives of its citizens by providing a gateway to higher education and a way to fulfill their dreams.