The study, which is U.S. based, raises some important issues for future directions in higher education. Even before the research was complete, congressional leaders called press conferences to denounce the commission's early findings, which belied the scare headlines and eschewed simplistic solutions. Tuition has been going up much faster than costs.
College is still affordable.
Complex regulations, including health and safety requirements, environmental protection rules, mandates of the Americans with Disabilities Act, tax-reporting requirements, and accreditation processes are often financially burdensome for universities and colleges. The facts and figures that the AAUP presented revealed that academics make far less money than comparably educated professionals such as doctors and lawyers. But beyond the dollars that research grants bring to the campus, the value of academic research is not immediately visible to funders and legislators. Instead, they often look to classroom hours as the primary measure of performance, unaware of how deeply the marriage of teaching and research has enriched higher education in this country. The objective is to measure student learning, however achieved, and to rate departments on the basis of student outcomes.