I lead a university. Higher education is failing students — Congress is right to act

Something is breached successful American higher education, and this twelvemonth Washington whitethorn yet bash thing astir it.

This week, legislature leaders announced their 2026 argumentation priorities, and for the archetypal clip successful years, higher acquisition is adjacent the apical of the list. From pupil indebtedness betterment to an accreditation overhaul, lawmakers are signaling that the days of blank checks and governmental extortion for bloated institutions whitethorn yet beryllium over.

They’re close to act. For decades, galore colleges and universities person enjoyed monolithic payer enactment with small accountability. Tuition has skyrocketed, administrative costs person ballooned, and excessively galore graduates permission with crushing indebtedness but nary wide way forward.

As the president of Southeastern University, I judge it is clip to align higher acquisition with what students really need. That means affordable, purpose-driven programs that hole them for existent life, not conscionable lectures. It means rethinking accreditation systems that support entrenched interests. And it means supporting schools that connection applicable learning, quality development, and existent returns for students and taxpayers alike.

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The accepted exemplary is nary longer working. The mean outgo of a four-year grade has much than doubled successful the past generation. Student indebtedness indebtedness present tops $1.7 trillion. And galore employers inactive accidental graduates deficiency indispensable workplace skills, including communication, captious thinking, and basal reliability.

At the aforesaid time, accreditation bodies person created a strategy that favors conformity implicit innovation. They artifact emerging and faith-based institutions from competing, portion shielding bequest schools from reform. The effect is little competition, much ideological groupthink, and less options for families looking for thing different. The strategy has been built to service institutions, not students. That indispensable change. Encouragingly, immoderate accreditors, specified arsenic the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission connected Colleges (SACSCOC), nether its caller leadership, are opening to propulsion against this norm and beforehand innovation that genuinely serves students.

Accountability doesn’t mean much national reddish tape. It means asking basic, common-sense questions: Are students graduating connected time? Are they uncovering meaningful enactment oregon work opportunities? Are they increasing successful responsibility, intent and leadership?

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We request to reward schools that present high-quality, low-cost education. We should unfastened the doorway for commercialized schools, Christian universities, and nontraditional programs to thrive without being penalized by outdated standards.

The aboriginal of American higher acquisition won’t beryllium saved by doubling down connected indebtedness and bureaucracy. It volition beryllium saved by bold enactment that believes successful affordability, accountability, and the dignity of each student’s calling. (iStock)

At Southeastern University, we person built a exemplary that combines vocational clarity, experiential learning, and a instauration of Christian leadership. We spouse with employers, ministries, and assemblage leaders truthful students summation real-world acquisition earlier they ever transverse the graduation stage. We bash this portion keeping our tuition among the lowest successful our category.

This isn’t mentation — it’s working. And we’re not alone. Across the country, mission-driven colleges are proving that it is imaginable to amended the full idiosyncratic without burdening students with excessive indebtedness oregon ideological pressure.

This is simply a uncommon model for change. Students are demanding more. Families are losing trust. And present Congress is yet asking the close questions.

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But it volition instrumentality courageousness to travel through. The aforesaid institutions that helped make this situation volition beryllium the loudest defenders of the presumption quo. They volition reason that betterment is dangerous, that oversight is political, and that immoderate situation to the existent strategy is an onslaught connected higher acquisition itself.

It isn’t. It’s a defence of what higher acquisition was ever meant to be: a way to truth, service, and opportunity.

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The aboriginal of American higher acquisition won’t beryllium saved by doubling down connected indebtedness and bureaucracy. It volition beryllium saved by bold enactment that believes successful affordability, accountability, and the dignity of each student’s calling.

Congress is close to act. Now they indispensable decorativeness the occupation and enactment students first.

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