A federal plan to improve higher education can’t work without more financial aid, the University of Wisconsin-Madison provost said today.
Patrick Farrell was responding to reports that U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings was expected today to endorse some of the recommendations of a panel charged with improving higher education. But she is expected not to commit to one major recommendation, increasing Pell Grants.
….One of the major recommendations Spellings wants to move ahead with is a massive database that would pull together students’ academic data. The intent is to create a picture of how well a college or university is performing. It would also give institutions the ability to track transfer students or dropouts.
Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications, said he was worried when he read that Spellings believed the plan would allow parents and students to shop for colleges like they shop for cars.