WASHINGTON, D.C.

The Commission on the Future of Higher Education on Thursday approved the final draft report of recommendations for improving U.S. higher education to ensure that graduates remain competitive in an ever-changing global economy.

Though the report garnered near-unanimous approval, some commission members said they had ongoing concerns about the report as well as the state of U.S. higher education.

“Our findings indicate that these days, we are principally privileging the privileged -  [those] who, by virtue of circumstances of birth and civic status, are able to have expectations that match their aspirations,” said Dr. Arturo Madrid, a commission member and Trinity University humanities professor. “All of us here had most of those conditions. We need to remind ourselves that a very large percentage of our potential students do not.”

The new draft calls for increasing higher ed access and performance via more aid to low-income students and enhancing student preparation; the restructuring of the financial aid system to improve the measurement and management of costs; and the creation of a “consumer-friendly” higher ed database to track student performance.

The panel also recommended revamping higher ed curricula to encourage innovation and emphasize math and the sciences; develop a national strategy to promote lifelong learning; and increase federal investment in “areas critical to our nation’s global competitiveness” such as engineering and medicine.

Commission member Dr. David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, said this new draft is still too pessimistic and critical of U.S. higher ed and does not do enough to highlight and promote higher ed “best practices.” He is the only commission member who says he will not sign the report.

“I guess I may be providing rain on this unanimous reaction to the report. I do share with everybody a very positive reaction to the report, but in its entirety, I feel reluctant to sign it,” Ward said. “Where I think I have apprehension is that I wish we could have built our arguments more on the strength of higher education than on the idea that there may be a crisis or even an emerging crisis.”