Accountability is a term that has many meanings based on the context. Within the landscape of higher education, the term typically relates to the obligation of higher education to report outcomes and be accountable to the various audiences and stakeholder. Pressure on institutions to show that they are “practicing what they preach” is coming from many levels. Federally, the US Department of Education is placing a higher importance on assessment and accountability from institutions of higher education with initiatives like the Spellings Commission Report and the Voluntary System of Accountability. At the state level, regional higher education consortiums are emphasizing accountability as a priority. Furthermore, individual institutions are seeing accountability to their mission and values as paramount to their operation, not only for self-assessment but to meet stringent accreditation standards.
EditFederal Accountability
Thus far, the bulk of accountability in higher education has remained under the umbrella of accreditation and within individual institutions. However, that is not to say that federal policy and commissions do not have an effect on accountability in higher education. Influence from the federal level is strong and sets the tone for the nature of accountability at other levels.
Spellings Commission Report – Commission on the Future of Higher Education
- Released on September 26, 2006 by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
- Addressed several areas in higher education in need of reform including accountability, cost, access, financial aid, learning, and innovation
- Emphasized that every one of higher education’s problem areas could be improved through accountability measures
- Encouraged the creation of a database that could be accessed by consumers and policymakers alike, so that they may “obtain comparative information including cost, price, admissions data, college completion rates and, eventually, learning outcomes” (p. 21)
- Recommended that institutions develop, measure, and report learning outcomes. Additionally, incentives should be offered at the federal level for the development of such systems.
http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/final-report.pdfInfluences of the Spellings Commission Report
- Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA)
- Created by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grand Colleges (NASULGC) in response to the Spellings Commission Report’s suggestions.
- Institutions involved in the VSA participate in the College Portrait which gathers data regarding consumer information, student experiences and perceptions, and student learning outcomes.
- The data collected by the College Portrait makes institutional data comparable and consumer-friendly.
http://voluntarysystem.org/index.cfmEditChallenges to Accountability
While the increasing emphasis on accountability may result in improvements in higher education, institutional accountability is often seen as a large and daunting task. Paul Lingenfelter of the National Commission on Accountability outlines several challenges facing the accountability trend in higher education:
- “We generate massive, unfocused reports on every conceivable aspect of higher education that generally go unread and unused;
- States are developing complex, burdensome 'incentive budgeting' schemes to motivate us to do what we should be doing anyway;
- We can’t answer straight-forward questions about success rates in higher education, and we are defensive about the graduation rates reported by the system we helped design;
- We have sticker prices that have grown much faster than inflation, and we cannot provide straight-forward answers to questions about net price to undergraduate students and changes over time; and
- We don’t have good answers when asked, 'Have students learned what they need to know?' "
Lingenfelter, P.E. (2005) The National Commission on Accountability in Higher Education. American Council on Education, Retrieved June 20, 2008 from
http://www.sheeo.org/about/paulpres/ACE%20Presentation%20February%202005.pdf