Revising the HEA to restore educational integrity

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CounterCurrent: A Blueprint for Higher Education Reform
Revising the HEA to restore
educational integrity

CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, bringing you the biggest issues in academia and our responses to them.
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Category: Federal Legislation; Reading Time: ~2 minutes
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** Featured Report - Freedom to Learn: Amending the Higher Education Act ([link removed][UNIQID])
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We all know that American higher education is in desperate need of reform, but what’s the best way to bring it about? Do we wait for institutions to fix themselves? Do we impose government regulations to force change from without? Do we allow academia to crash and burn entirely, hoping that something better will rise from the ashes? All of the above?

At the National Association of Scholars, we believe that a hybrid approach between internal and external reform is necessary to bring lasting change to higher education. We continue to urge colleges and universities to eschew social justice “education,” ([link removed][UNIQID]) to embrace the rich history of Western Civilization ([link removed][UNIQID]) as they once did, to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist Party ([link removed][UNIQID]) and other foreign governments, and to practice fiscal responsibility ([link removed][UNIQID]) in the midst of a COVID-accelerated financial crisis, among many, many other reforms.

But that’s not all we do. We also advocate for legislative changes that will help hold institutions accountable, regardless of whether the schools themselves choose to pursue lasting change or further decay. One key way to do this is to amend the Higher Education Act (HEA) ([link removed][UNIQID]) , a bill that was first enacted in 1965 and that details the requirements colleges and universities must meet in order to qualify for federal funding. Save for the roughly twenty schools ([link removed][UNIQID]) that have remained financially independent, virtually every other institution in the country drinks deeply from the taxpayer well. Threaten the water supply and they suddenly start listening. Amending the HEA is one of the surest ways to reform higher education, one that does not rely on corrupt and misguided college presidents in order to be effective.

How exactly should we revise the HEA? In our new report, Freedom to Learn: Amending the Higher Education Act ([link removed][UNIQID]) , we put forth 40 detailed suggestions for legislative reforms which, if enacted by Congress, would begin to ameliorate America's costly, politicized, and dysfunctional system of higher education. The report was written collaboratively by several NAS staff members and groups proposed reforms into the following categories: Finances, Rights, the American National Interest, Equality, and Regulatory Reform. Together, we believe that these changes would begin to reverse the decades-long rot threatening the very life of the academy itself. As we write in the report’s Introduction:

The National Association of Scholars believes that higher education should gather scholars and students to cultivate excellence and pursue the truth, transmit our heritage of Western civilization to a new generation, prepare cultured and virtuous citizens, and train students for vocational success. American colleges and universities should embody academic excellence and foster it in their students. Our institutions of higher education should strive to make their classes affordable, so as to make higher education accessible for any qualified student. …


The Higher Education Act can and should encourage colleges to live up to these ideals. Our policy guide, Freedom to Learn, shows how it can do so. Freedom to Learn sets forth policies by which Congress can promote intellectual freedom, academic rigor, equal opportunity, affordability—and limit foreign interference, politicization, and administrative bloat.


We encourage legislators of all ideological persuasions to work together and help save higher education from itself. Otherwise, we may witness the mass-extinction of America’s colleges and universities in the not-so-distant future. The academy is worth reforming and preserving, but more and more it seems that change must work from the outside in.

Until next week.

David Acevedo
Communications & Research Associate
National Association of Scholars
Read More ([link removed][UNIQID])
For more on federal legislation and higher ed accountability:
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January 15, 2021


** An Antidote for Higher Ed's Disease ([link removed][UNIQID])
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Keith Whitaker

NAS Board Chair Keith Whitaker's closing remarks from our January 13 report launch, "Freedom to Learn: A Blueprint for Higher Education Reform."

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November 30, 2020


** University Administrators’ Pandemic Power Grab ([link removed][UNIQID])
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Neetu Arnold

Universities are taking advantage of the pandemic to "hollow out the middle," that is, to defenestrate full-time and tenured faculty from their positions of influence in the university.

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November 20, 2020


** U.S. Education Reform is Necessary for International Security ([link removed][UNIQID])
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David Acevedo

Colleges and universities must work to counter undue foreign influence, particularly from the Chinese Communist Party.

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April 18, 2020


** Critical Care ([link removed][UNIQID])
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National Association of Scholars

American higher education is facing an unprecedented financial crisis. Critical Care is a plan to guide the federal response to these unprecedented disruptions facing higher education in the midst of the pandemic.


** About the NAS
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The National Association of Scholars, founded in 1987, emboldens reasoned scholarship and propels civil debate. We’re the leading organization of scholars and citizens committed to higher education as the catalyst of American freedom.

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