Colleges Need To Be Measured on Quality, Not Inputs

It’s time to demand more of American colleges. Here’s how.

Andrew P. Kelly | Forbes

For too long, we’ve judged the quality of American higher education according to Potter Stewart’s famous standard for pornography: “I know it when I see it.” Our current system evaluates colleges almost entirely on inputs — such as the academic pedigree of the students they admit — without actually measuring quality in any meaningful way. Misguided “free college” proposals wave their hands at these problems. Here’s what to do instead.