Flying Blind

Richard Vedder makes a good point about the information deficit in higher education. He thinks the president of Ohio University--where he teaches--should be fired. But in making his case, he's got a problem:

Yet the President has his supporters. And, frankly, some of the critical information that would be useful in evaluating the state of the university under his leadership is simply unavailable. Do students graduate knowing more than when they entered? Are graduates of the university leading fulfilling lives five years after attending the school? Do new graduates feel their education was a good investment? And has the answers regarding any of these questions changed materially over the years the current president has run the institution? Honestly, I don't know the answers to these questions. Nor do the Trustees who hire the leaders of our institutions --they operate with far less information than is desirable. That is another reason why the Spellings Commission calls for more assessment and transparency in university operations is important.

Most people in higher education seem to have deep misgivings about the Spellings Commission and its call for more assessment, transparency, and accountability for the nation's colleges and universities. These are not illegitimate concerns; accountability done badly is worse than none at all.

But these conversations hardly ever fully account for the true costs of the information deficit Vedder describes. Without solid information, we're left with opinions, personal relationships, institutional power, and ideology. This is true not just of evaluating presidents but a whole host of other decisions in higher education, everything from where students choose to enroll to how professors are hired and trained to how universities are organized and funded. Each of these processes would benefit from more information about institutional quality, but none of them have it, and they're worse as a result.