Drinking age debate fills the August doldrums

An initiative to reopen the debate on the drinking age, led by a consortium of college presidents (called the Amethyst Initiative), has hit the jackpot in media coverage during the mid-August higher ed reporting doldrums.

Within the past few days, the story has been reported in more than 600 articles (see the Google news roundup here, and a listing of blog hits here. The last 24 hours alone have seen stories in the Chicago Trib, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Christian Science Monitor, and AFP, among others.

John McCardell, the initiative's leader, made a presentation on his efforts at the NAICU annual meeting in February - click here for audio excerpts and powerpoint.

The initiative's statement of purpose is to "call upon elected officials to weigh all the consequences of current alcohol policies and to invite new ideas on how best to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use."

If they're looking to open the debate, then the explosion of coverage indicates success. The initiative has raised criticism from several sources, including MADD and the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Democrats release platform, McCain posts higher education agenda

A forum last Friday at the New America Foundation gave Democrats an opportunity to roll-out elements of their recently completed platform. The foundation has extended an invitation to the Republicans to do the same with the GOP platform in September (we'll provide the link when available).

See McCain’s higher ed agenda here. and Obama's here.

The higher education section of the Democratic platform is what we expected, having heard these ideas in Obama speeches (see Inside Higher Ed article for more) – simplifying the financial aid system, support the Pell Grant program, and create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit, which students can receive in exchange for community service. The McCain campaign this weekend released their higher education program – which also has no big surprises. McCain calls for supporting modernized universities without increased regulation; improving information for parents; simplifying higher ed tax benefits; simplifying financial aid; and fixing the student loan programs.

The release of the Democratic platform piqued the interest of the DC set, with a packed room, a spill-over room, and 500+ people who (according to the foundation) logged in for the webcast, notable given that the foundation put the event together in just one day.

An overview of the Democratic platform drafting process was given by Karen Kornbluh (formerly of the foundation and now on leave from Obama’s senate staff and working on his campaign). As she put it, the Democrats had five weeks to write the platform instead of the usual five months (as a result of the prolonged primary season). They had a drafting committee and a platform committee with two high level meetings – one of about 50 people in Ohio, one of 180 in Pittsburgh. The groups were made up of half Clinton people and half Obama people. Apparently, there was no dissension.

Preceding those two meetings, grassroots participation in the platform process took place as "meet-ups” (a throwback to the Dean campaign). Kornbluh reported that there were 1,645 listening hearings and more than 30,000 people participated.

Other items of note include some new language (which we'll all be tired of by November), such as "no restoration to the status quo ante," "transnational challenges," "common security,” and "green-collar jobs."

Quandry

We applaud Forbes magazine for its possibly inadvertent efforts yesterday to heighten awareness of the complexities of higher education policy. In an op-ed in its “America’s Best Colleges” issue and on its Web site, Senator Charles Grassley makes the case that colleges are too rich and that they need to spend more of their endowments on student aid rather than on attracting new students. In a companion article, Forbes announced the launch of their new college ranking system that, when you look closely at the fine print, rewards colleges with large endowments for allowing their professors to pursue specialized scholarship and thus win awards, honors and other recognition.

When reading these two articles, it's seems as if Forbes is telling us that colleges are too rich, but that they have to be rich to be good. See the irony? This media clutter is a major reason NAICU developed U-CAN, a free online consumer information resource that lets students and parents decide for themselves which institution ranks as their best option.

So our thanks goes to Forbes.com for their insightful treatment of a quandry facing higher education - how to compete in a complex market without competing in a complex market.