When President Obama first mentioned his grand idea for the federal government to rate colleges and universities, Jamienne Studley had her doubts.
The No. 2 Education Department official overseeing higher education says she "started out as a skeptic about the project."
"When I first heard about it, I did the same big gulp that people in higher ed land did," said Studley, who is leaving her post as deputy under secretary of education next month after helping to lead the Obama administration’s ambitious second-term higher education agenda.
Studley was among the architects of the administration’s ill-fated ratings plan -- which morphed into the College Scorecard -- as well as its efforts to reform accreditation.
Reflecting on her two-and-a-half-year stint at the Education Department in an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Studley said that her work on the ratings and College Scorecard project was the most personally satisfying.
In spite of how the ratings plan changed, she said, the final product "still meets the original objectives of increasing student information and [providing] the opportunity for public accountability. [That] feels pretty good."
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/05/top-education-dept-official-who-worked-college-ratings-reflects-tenure