While the rhetoric is good, the realities are far more complex and I don't see much in this plan that addresses deeper, long-term rot in the system of American higher education. Watch the documentary "Declining by Degrees" to get a big-picture assessment. Major problems: costs that are spiraling out of control (outpacing inflation for decades), incentive structures for professors that largely ignores students and student learning (e.g. research papers that few read versus teaching well), no agreed-upon evaluations of what students are actually learning, and broadly declining standards at all levels (e.g. increasing numbers of remedial classes for entering high school students, grade inflation in college to retain students).
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Excerpts-of-the-P...
While the rhetoric is good, the realities are far more complex and I don't see much in this plan that addresses deeper, long-term rot in the system of American higher education. Watch the documentary "Declining by Degrees" to get a big-picture assessment. Major problems: costs that are spiraling out of control (outpacing inflation for decades), incentive structures for professors that largely ignores students and student learning (e.g. research papers that few read versus teaching well), no agreed-upon evaluations of what students are actually learning, and broadly declining standards at all levels (e.g. increasing numbers of remedial classes for entering high school students, grade inflation in college to retain students).