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If I had just skimmed over the Andrew Kelly and Kevin James article entitled, “Untapped potential: Making the higher education market work for students and taxpayers,” there is a good chance I would have thought that I advocated for the same ideas Kelly and James do. The title sounds promising; the words untapped potential immediately made me think the article would be about the high-performing children in low-income brackets that need more attention. Likewise, the broad points seem reasonable as well: Oversight committees need to be modernized, responsibilities should be delegated, better data should be published, and students need more knowledge about finances. However, once looking into the details of their points, I found I disagreed with Kelly and James on almost every level.

Firstly, the oversight committee point took a bleak turn in my opinion when the authors recommended kicking the worst performing schools out of federal aid programs. This is an issue to me for the same reasons we discussed in class: there are so many factors that go into making a school good or bad that it makes it far too nebulous if a school is worth saving. Therefore, I believe it should be assumed that every school is worth saving, and that any reasons why a school is failing can be solved without resorting to shutting a school down or taking money away from it.

Secondly, the fact that responsibilities need to be delegated better I think is one that most people in the country would agree with. There is always room for improvement in the ways in which the government delegates responsibilities. However, the authors’ position to bring in “professional associations” to me screamed privatization. Likewise, non-profit organizations are often biased and influenced as well due to their funding schemes that are largely run by either state or federal governments. This strategy would only increase bias and decrease progress.

Another issue that I had with the authors’ take on higher education loan policies was their strategy to cap federal PLUS loans. As a student who relies nearly entirely on Parent Plus loans, this point really struck home with me. I think that when systems such as higher education are failing, and people of low-income are at high risk of not graduating, taking more money out of the equation would be disastrous decision. Likewise, the authors claim that loans are often given without many questions asked, however I think this is a huge overstatement. As a student with many loans, I know that the financial aid process is grueling, confusing, and very taxing. If anything, I think the financial aid process needs to be even more simplified than it is now, and not ask more questions, but instead ask more questions that pertain to wealth and more nebulous financial situations.

One last part of the article that took me aback was the authors’ claim that “American universities continue to top international rankings… leading policymakers and the public to assume the US higher education system is delivering top-notch educational value to its students.” However, the US is constantly under scrutiny for its falling international ranks and policymakers have been catastrophically trying to piece the American education system back together for years now. I feel that this article contains a plethora of overstatements and false conclusions that rely heavily on opinions and misinterpreted logic.

Full article found here: http://www.aei.org/paper/education/higher-education/costs/untapped-potential-making-the-higher-education-market-work-for-students-and-taxpayers