Every time I visit a college campus, I am reminded of why it is that I am so drawn to higher education and why the U.S. system of higher education remains the envy of the world.

Sure, our higher-education system struggles with some significant challenges, including the extraordinarily high cost of attending some institutions. But the sort of innovation that goes on at college campuses across our nation is nothing short of breathtaking. Meeting with professors and administrators and hearing about the various programs and opportunities they make available to students is energizing and uplifting, especially during these difficult economic times when one cannot help but worry about future U.S. competitiveness.
   
Sitting in Washington, it is easy to get caught up in narrow data sets that paint a picture of institutional shortcomings and failure. Never mind that the data are inadequate and...

In response to my last post about "blizzarding over" on our boat, I've gotten lots of emails asking me why we live on a boat, despite the fact that there are apartments and houses all over the District that could provide luxuries like a flushing toilet and indoor showers regardless of the weather. Some suggested that my husband and I live on a boat to avoid paying taxes -- ha! While wealthy people who live on boats in the islands might be able to avoid paying taxes, we live at a city-owned marina and collect paychecks from established organizations, so we pay taxes just like everyone else. We don't own our slip, so we don't pay property taxes, but we do pay a monthly slip fee for the use of the marina facilities, similar to the way that an apartment dweller pays rent to a landlord. That said, living on a boat is the most affordable way to live in the District, especially since our boat...

A year and a half ago, my husband and I decided to take the plunge - literally - and live out a dream we had been discussing for more than 12 of our then 22 years together. The idea first came to us during a 10th anniversary trip to Paris when we saw the river barges on the Seine. I think it was the rooftop gardens that appealed to me most, whereas it was the efficient use of every nook and cranny that became the focus of my husband's attention. After all, he is the one who sketched out every apartment or house we ever lived in -- to scale, using graph paper -- so that he could plan with great precision where each piece of furniture would go well in advance of moving day. Or maybe it was just the romantic idea of the people we imagined to be living on those boats, and the life stories we attributed to them, that stole our hearts and minds. Regardless, on a cold January day in Paris, we...

President Obama's FY 2011 budget request to Congress is an insult to the American people, and especially the 10 percent of the people who will pay more than 70 percent of the cost of this not-so-little spending spree.  If we remember back to the hope-and-change campaign trail -- it seems like so long ago -- President Obama told us that he would not increase taxes for people who make make less than $250,000 a year.

Of course, those of us who have actually worked with the federal budget knew full well that he could not pay for all of the other programs he promised without increasing taxes on those with incomes at or above $80,000 per year, but the campaign trail provides some latitude when it comes to truth and the details. Within months of taking office, however, the promise had morphed from $250,000 per person to $250,000 per family. 

Person ... family ... what difference does that...

A reader of my last post asked if I had written my comments about the power of constituency prior to or after the Supreme Court's decision regarding the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform. I wrote it after. 

To be sure, the Supreme Court's decision will make pre-election television watching and radio listening a horrible experience for all Americans. How happy I was on November 5, 2008, to turn my television back on and not hear 30-second advertisements that presented a biased set of "facts" and an inflated set of promises. How hard it will be for those sitting in the White House today to endure the reruns of those advertisements during the next campaign when Americans are asked to distinguish between those things that were promised and those that were delivered.

But in truth, the most detestable and intolerable of all of those advertisements came not from corporate interests, or ...

The Massachusetts election last week serves as an astonishing reminder that, despite popular rhetoric to the contrary, the power of our republican democracy still lies in the hands of the people.  Sure, special interest groups on both sides of any issue try to influence statesmen and voters, alike, but the people of Massachusetts have provided a strong reminder that the special interest group with the loudest voice is the one that has the power of constituency on its side. 

The pejorative use of the term "special interest" is an insult to Americans who understand that each of us has special interests, that each of us is part of one or more special interest groups, and that each of us is represented in one way or another by a professional Washington lobbyist. Any of us who is a member of a formal organization, who lives in a community, who attends a school, or who has a job is likely to ...

Among all of the shortcomings of our outdated Federal Student Aid program, perhaps none is more problematic than the use of a need-based aid system to send students into an achievement-based higher education system.   Back in 1972 when the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program (which later became the Pell Grant program) was created, a high school diploma was meaningful, and only those who were academically prepared for college level work were admitted to institutions of higher education.  Under the assumption that any student attending a college or university would be academically prepared and attitudinally ready to learn, a need -based student aid system made good policy sense.  But fast-forward to today and we see that the very program created to solve the public policy dilemma of the 1970's (college access) may be responsible for exacerbating the public policy dilemma of today: ...

Bravo to the Obama Administration for pushing forward on the unit record database that will require states to track student enrollment throughout their higher education career. Finally we have an opportunity to understand the enrollment patterns, participation rates, and completion trends of the majority of college students, including all of those nontraditional and transfer students (many of whom transfer not from two-year to four-year institutions, but instead from four-year to four-year institutions) who are missed by the IPEDS cohort data system.

Finally, we might be able to learn what happens to all of those students who start off majoring in the sciences or engineering, but end up graduating from other (less demanding? more lucrative?) majors. Finally, we will have the opportunity to know what happens to all of those low-income and adult learners who need to take a semester off ...

As the semester comes to an end at campuses across the country, students are taking advantage of their opportunity to critique the instructors who will, in the coming days, be issuing their final course grades. In a perfect world -- in fact, in the world in which many of us once lived -- the instructor evaluation would serve as an important tool for seeking student feedback on, for example, the organization of the syllabus, the amount of time devoted to one topic versus another, the effectiveness of new pedagogical techniques, the use of instructional technology, or even the readability of a new textbook or laboratory manual. Many years ago when I was a faculty member, I actually used to look forward to reading my students’ comments, which were generally thoughtful, informative, and helpful to me in designing my course for the next semester. Sure, there was an occasional nasty comment,...

In continuing my blog series on reforms needed in our federal student-aid program, I want to now focus on the dreaded EFC -- Estimated Family Contribution. In financial-aid terms, the EFC is the amount of money that the U.S. Department of Education determines, based on data collected through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), that a family can contribute toward the student's education. The formula utilized to calculate the EFC is developed by Congress (not student-aid experts) and is generally included each time the Higher Education Act is reauthorized. I have been on both the sending and receiving ends of this number, and I can tell you that the current formula for determining EFC has everything to do with political realities and nothing to do with the financial realities under which students and families live.

The EFC formula is not based on data collected about...