The letter quoted below is a private communication from Charles Miller, chair of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, to Secretary Spellings, who "commissioned" the Commission. The letter makes clear Mr. Miller's belief that higher education must embrace and act on the difference between price (tuition) and cost (per-student internal expenses) by increasing productivity to address the rising unaffordability of access -- a recurring theme in my blog.
Charles Miller Assails Private and Research Universities in 'Personal' Letter
Chronicle of Higher Educations News Blog, September 28, 2006
When Charles Miller, chairman of the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education, submitted the panel’s report last week to the U.S. secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, he included a cover letter that was not part of the official document posted on the Education Department’s Web site. In the letter, Mr. Miller shares what he calls “strictly personal observations,” calling the system of financing higher education “dysfunctional.” He writes that “in addition to the lack of transparency regarding pricing, which severely limits the price signals found in a market-based system, there is a lack of the incentives necessary to affect institutional behavior so as to reward innovation and improvement in productivity. Financial systems of higher education instead focus on and reward increasing revenues—a top line structure with no real bottom line.” Chronicle subscribers can read more ...
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