Douglas Alexander: “Secretary Spellings has appointed this commission to look at the future of higher education. Other than the war against…”

“Secretary Spellings has appointed this commission to look at the future of higher education. Other than the war against terror, keeping our brain power advantage so we can create new jobs here in the United States and keep our jobs from going to China, India, Finland, and Ireland, is the biggest challenge we face as a nation. I made a statement before the Commission on the Future of Higher Education that it adopt the recommendations of the National Academies' ``Augustine Report'' and urge the President to make it a focus of his State of the Union Address. The report recommends 20 steps to keep that brain power advantage, and was written by a distinguished panel of business, government, and university leaders headed by Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin. I also urged the commission to make certain that we deregulate higher education; to make certain that the President appoints an adviser to coordinate all of the Federal Government's responsibilities for higher education; to urge Congress to overhaul Medicaid so States may properly fund higher education; to put a spotlight on the greatest disappointment in higher education today, our colleges of education; and, finally, to put a spotlight on the greatest threat to broader public support for funding of higher education, the growing political one-sidedness which has infected most campuses in an absence of true diversity of opinion. I salute Secretary Spellings and her distinguished commission.…”