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Addressing and tackling a sensitive topic in Washington, our education secretary Arne Duncan broke the ice in Washington to make it clear that higher education schools that are given tax exemption or that depend on Federal dollars will be accountable for results.

A recent Federal study showed how if the skills of workers matched the jobs on offer then there could be a drastic drop in rate of unemployment. This makes it imperative to produce graduates who are fit for these jobs and are not saddled with huge student loans for life.

There is a general consensus that the approach of our education secretary is too soft and his focus is only on higher education’s for-profit sector and career colleges. Students here anyway graduate with lower debt and benefit from gainful employment. There is no effort to reach out and help the private, state-run and nonprofit schools that are the major beneficiaries of education subsidies.

These are the schools that require maximum attention as graduates from here are at a loss in the field of employment and face limited career prospects. They also find themselves saddled with huge loans and are disappointed by the underperforming, overpromising schools.

President Bush’s government faced stiff opposition by the Congress that in turn acted in the interest of private schools when he tried to make every single sphere of higher education accountable. Probes aimed at establishing whether the Federal research grants, student loans and tax breaks were used in the right manner and whether students are actually getting their money’s worth.
There are at least 2800 for profit schools offering a variety of degrees including masters in business and associate in cosmetology. Most of them do not spend on constructing state of art colleges all with hi-tech athletic facilities and rely on online teaching.

Some of these degrees are over hyped and charge exorbitantly, most of them are actually bridging the gap in higher education and Duncan acknowledges this fact too. Innovation is much slower in nonprofit and state run schools predominantly due to the undue faculty power and bureaucracies.

Career schools are also accountable for the way in which they spend the Federal grants and dollars. Most students graduating from these schools are found to be unfit for their job profile and are saddled with too much loan as compared to their earnings prospects. Admissions standards in these schools are lower too.

Our education secretary clearly hesitates to target historically black colleges too for their underperformance which is a bigger problem than in the private colleges. He also shies away from singling out universities that give preference to star athletes and sends them to higher grades irrespective of whether they deserve it or not.

The question remains as to why focus only on the career schools. This lopsided rulemaking and blatant discrimination is unwarranted from Duncan’s department. Congress must also back off from targeting career schools and widen their perspective to include overall higher education scenario.

Today, our nation is at crossroads needing well educated graduates to keep us moving ahead amidst stiff global competition. Quest for accountability must be broadened by the Obama administration and there must be no playing favorites.