College presidents, the public, and other stakeholders in higher education appear to define the challenges facing the American postsecondary-education system differently, a dynamic that is a barrier to forging a consensus about how to tackle issues of cost, access, and quality, according to a new report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and Public Agenda.

In their report, “The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk About Costs, Access, and Quality,” the two groups document the views of more than two dozen college presidents they interviewed about those topics. The one-on-one interviews were conducted with the leaders of various types of colleges — including public and private ones and two-year and four-year institutions — that are located across the country.

The report says it cannot provide a definitive picture of the views of college presidents nationwide, but, among the leaders interviewed, some main ideas were mostly shared.

In the view of many of the presidents interviewed, the report says, the three main issues of cost, quality, and access exist in what the authors call an “iron triangle,” meaning that they are linked in an “unbreakable reciprocal relationship, such that any change in one will inevitably impact the others.”

Most of the presidents believe that to improve the quality of education, more money needs to be put into the system, and that cutting costs in higher education, conversely, would eventually lead to declines in quality or access.

In order to meet the educational demands of the future, the college presidents also generally share the view that much of the “heavy lifting” will need to be done by governments putting more money into higher education, by families paying more in tuition, and by private businesses entering into more partnerships with colleges, the report says.

Most of the presidents also seem to believe that colleges have already done much of what they can do to become cost-effective. —Sara Hebel