You are listening to an audio presentation by Vanderbilt University. This file is an excerpt of a lecture given by PatCallan, regarding the role of the federal government in higher education,presented on Friday, December 1, 2006, at Vanderbilt Peabody College. The totalrunning time for the full lecture is approximately 1:27:20; this excerpt runs 3:58. [begin excerpt] Audience Member: If you could sort of wave your magic wand, and reinvent the role of the federal government (has) in higher education, as you view these problems before us today, for this next generation, what would be the federal government's role? What could it do to take us in the direction you think is needed? Pat Callan: You know, I'm kind of -- I'm a pretty -- I'm a kind of a traditionalist when it comes to the federal... I think it is a strength that we don't have a federal system of higher education, with a system in a country that has 4000 colleges and universities, I just -- and I don't believe we have the capacity to... when I watch the... so my sense is that I would like the federal government to do the things that we have historically relied on it to do, and do well. I mean, I... like the quality of information about the system, I mean... Audience Member: Right. Callan: That's... that responsibility goes back to, what, the 19th Century. Audience Member: 1867. Callan: Okay, yeah! So we can't get that right, I think the... so, that's where I'd start. The second thing I would do is... student financial aid, which is just really critical, and I think the most important recommendation in the Miller Commission is that financial aid recommendation. I mean, if we... we simply aren't going to succeed if we don't... if the federal government doesn't play that role of equalizer... You know, in the early '70s -- this is talking around your question, a little -- and I'm not, you know, so nostalgic for those days that I think they were the "good old days," but there was, kind of, for a decade, a kind of broad consensus -- as close as you can ever get in a country with 50 states, and public and private (institutions) that the states would subsidize the middle class, by keeping tuition moderate; the federal government would play a principle role with the low-income students, with what became Pell grants, and; state aid programs and loans would be for choice. And, looking back on that, you know... [laughs] that was a pretty rational system. Now, how would you have a discussion which could lead, even in a general way, to those kinds of things. So my own sense is that, you know, I don't really see that the federal government could... well, we'll see what happens with this great experiment in K-12, but I don't think there's any capacity to do anything, you know... the higher education lobby's favorite thing... we're in a world where the higher education associations can't deliver anything, politically. and so the only way they keep people paying their dues, and coming to meetings, is by convincing them that they're doing damage control; that they're standing there in Washington with their hand in the dyke. [indistinct audience comments] And so what they're saying is, "What the real plan is, No Child Left Behind, applied to higher education." Which... they can't even get it to high school. I mean, you know... [laughter] So it's not a matter of whether that's a good idea or a bad idea, it's just not... it's not in the cards... I don't even know if we have the capacity at the state level to do the things No Child Left Behind requires. But I know we don't have the capacity, anywhere, you know... so, my own sense would be, I think... in this respect, I think Charles Miller and the commission were right -- so if you did financial aid; if you did information... if you got this transparency, if you incentivized, I think, rather than in the short-term -- maybe in the long run, you do need a higher-ed NAPE (National Association for Primary Education), or something like that, I don't know. But if you incentivized in the meantime... more states and institutions to move to publicly... to some sort of discussion of outcomes, you know, I think those are the steps, the medium-sized steps that need to be taken. I don't... beyond that, I really haven't thought... I do believe, and I... I do think a system that is... and so that at the end, you probably do end up with something like -- whether they're imposed by regulation, or not -- with some at least national ideas about what everybody who's been to college ought to know and be able to do. [end excerpt] Thanks for listening to this excerpt from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. For further information on this topic, please see our web site at http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/.