By Travis Reindl

Every year, colleges and universities send reams of data to the federal government, on subjects ranging from campus crime to research by foreign nationals. Yet, there's still a lot we don't know about our system of higher education. Congress and the executive branch bear some responsibility for this state of affairs, continually adding to an already massive and uncoordinated regulatory structure. But some higher education leaders are also on the hook here, having fought efforts over the years to bring more transparency to colleges' admissions and financial aid practices, as well as their performance in educating and graduating students.

This is no longer acceptable. Higher education is a major enterprise in the U.S., representing three percent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employing more than 3.5 million Americans. Taxpayers also play a big part in this enterprise, contributing $21 billion toward federal student grants and billions more for research grants and contracts. Given that, it is troubling that we can't get better answers about who's getting into college, what happens to these students, and how much it costs to educate them.

As Congress and the Obama administration prepare to invest billions more in our colleges and universities, they should require colleges to provide better answers to the following five questions:

At Higher Ed Watch, we recently called on U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to open an investigation into allegations that the University of Phoenix, the country's largest chain of for-profit colleges, had deliberately tried to manipulate its cohort default rate. While he's at it, he should also examine the university's student recruiting practices.

In theory, this investigation has already been carried out. In 2004, a Department program review report found that the university had knowingly violated a federal law that bans colleges from compensating admissions officers on the basis of enrollments. The report blasted the university for fostering a high-pressure sales culture that rewarded recruiters who put the most "asses in the classes," including those of unqualified students.

Ultimately, the Education Department reached a $9.8-million settlement agreement with the Apollo Group, the university's parent company, to resolve issues that were raised in the review. The settlement, however, did not include any admission of wrongdoing by the corporation, and university officials continued to defend their practices. "If we were guilty of everything being said in that report, there's no way they'd be willing to reach a settlement or no way they'd be willing to sign a settlement agreement that says there is no admission of guilt," Todd Nelson, the university's then-president and chief executive officer, said in an interview with The Arizona Republic at the time.

Given that level of denial, it's probably not too surprising that things haven't changed that much at the University of Phoenix. At least that's the impression we got from reading internal memoranda made public last month (available on PACER) as part of a federal false claims, employment discrimination, and wrongful termination lawsuit brought against the for-profit college chain by Chad McKinney, a former recruiter at two of the university's San Diego campuses.

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[Editor's note: While Higher Ed Watch was on break in August, USA Today ran a debate on its editorial page over whether the federal government should ban colleges from giving legacy students a leg up in their admissions' decisions. On one side was the newspaper's editorial board, which argued against government intervention. On the other was Michael Dannenberg, the founder of the New America Foundation's Education Policy Program and former editor of Higher Ed Watch, who argued that a full-fledged ban is needed. We have reprinted the debate in its entirety with one factual clarification regarding Notre Dame University included at the request of Mr. Dannenberg.]

USA Today's view: Let alma maters decide

A fair number of freshmen arriving at their colleges this week are legacies, a term that sounds faintly disreputable. Aren't these the students who get into top-tier colleges because their parents went there and donate heavily?

That's what the critics of admission preferences for children of alumni say, and those critics got a boost from research released earlier this month.

A paper by a Duke University sociology professor and a graduate student concluded that legacy students entered Duke with lower grades and had poorer grades the first year (before recovering). Not only did the Duke legacy students earn lower grades initially, they were more likely to be wealthy, white, Protestant graduates of private schools.

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PHEAA May Pay $15 Million For 9.5% Loan Payments

The Department of Education has asked the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), one of the country's largest nonprofit student loan providers, to repay as much as $15 million in federal payments it improperly obtained by exploiting a subsidy program that guaranteed loan providers a 9.5 percent rate of return on government-backed student loans. The request comes two months after an audit by the Department’s own Inspector General found that PHEAA had improperly obtained $34 million in subsidy payments. The Department rejected these findings and suggested the $15 million price tag but is ultimately letting PHEAA decide how much it has to repay. A PHEAA spokesman suggested to The New York Times that the lender may end up with "zero liability." PHEAA is the first party in the 9.5 scandal to be held financialy accountable for its actions. In 2006 another lender, Nelnet, was caught with $278 in improperly obtained Department funds.

Diversity and minority recruitment are hot button words in most four year college admissions offices. There's congratulations when enrollment demographics show greater racial diversity and consternation when minority numbers drop.

But are college admissions office recruitment efforts working? Colleges will, in a knee-jerk fashion, say: yes, look at our racial and ethnic percentages! College access for minorities is a reality here! But how much is minority recruitment in admissions offices really contributing to the diversity of college campuses?

Unfortunately, at some Division I schools, not much. The black-white diversity on many campuses is not always the result of better minority recruitment. It’s often the result of athletics, and in particular, football.

Inside Higher Ed analyzed data from the NCAA and found that at 46 colleges (of the almost 330 colleges that participate in Division I athletics) athletes comprise at least a third of the black male student population. At 96 schools, athletes comprise at least 20 percent. Compare that to the percentage of all male students who are athletes: 3 percent.

In August, the College Board announced that for the first time since the early 1990s average SAT scores in reading and math had declined two years in a row. The announcement caused hand wringing in the news media and among pundits. Have students' scores dropped because…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

Last week, we discussed the paucity of low-income students at the country's wealthiest colleges and universities. We offered a proposal that would require the richest private colleges to devote a portion of their yearly endowment income to help increase the socioeconomic diversity of their students. Some might argue that there aren't enough qualified underprivileged students…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

Financing a college education isn't easy for anybody these days, but it's an especially Herculean task if you're a working-class student living paycheck to paycheck. The obstacles to attending college are high, and the more you have to work to support yourself and your family, the less help…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.