The nation’s colleges are "enmeshed in a jungle of red tape," faced with federal regulations that are complicated, costly, and often confusing, according to a new report by a Congressional task force.
The report, produced by the American Council on Education, concludes that too many federal rules are "unnecessarily voluminous and too often ambiguous," with "unreasonable" compliance costs. It calls for regulatory relief for colleges and an improved process for developing new rules.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Senate education committee, said the report’s recommendations would guide his panel’s efforts to "weed the garden" in the forthcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act and would "allow colleges to spend more of their time and money educating students, instead of filling out mountains of paperwork."
Mr. Alexander, who told The Chronicle that his "principal goal in higher education is to deregulate it," said his committee would hold a hearing on the report’s findings this month.
Senator Alexander, a former secretary of education and college president, created the task force in November 2013, along with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland; Sen. Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina; and Sen. Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado. They asked the panel to identify specific recommendations to consolidate or eliminate, to quantify the time and costs of complying with specific rules, and to provide recommendations for improved rule making.
The task force, which comprised 16 current and former college leaders and lobbyists, met four times, consulted with representatives of more than 60 institutions, and commissioned three policy papers that were financed by the Lumina Foundation. Its conclusion: "We need to be smarter about the regulation of higher education."
The report identifies several regulations that it says are ripe for reform, or removal. They include rules governing accreditation, campus crime, consumer information, distance education, and student aid. It also lays out "guiding principles" for developing and executing future rules.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Ed: http://chronicle.com/article/Congressional-Report-Blasts-a/190019