EDITORIAL: Next president must push for reform in higher education

College has become an important presidential campaign issue because the federal government has never been more entangled with higher education. Going to college used to be much simpler — and much cheaper. Today, with Washington in full control of the student loan industry and pouring billions more dollars into schools through Pell and research grants, the president has a great deal of power over the country's higher education institutions.

Presidential candidates have proposed fully subsidized two- and four-year degrees, income-based repayment plans and refinancing of loans to lower interest rates, among other initiatives to help students deal with crushing debt for courses and diplomas that haven't made them employable. But we'd like the federal government to have much less power overall, and use limited influence over higher education to improve systems and make them more accountable, instead of further increase demand and drive up costs.

Because presidential candidates are regular visitors to Nevada in building support for the state's February caucuses, the Review-Journal is publishing a 10-editorial series on policies and reforms we'd like them to champion. The newspaper's seventh recommendation: higher education reform.

Instead of creating new programs to finance schools and degree programs that aren't providing adequate job skills, the next U.S. president must push for changes that will help families make more informed choices about higher education, better guarantee a return on their investment and ensure students' rights are protected while they're pursuing degrees and certifications.

Foremost, higher education should be more transparent. Colleges collect all sorts of data on the achievements of the students they admit, but schools offer students precious little information on what those students accomplish once they have a degree in hand. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican candidate for president, champions the "Student Right to Know Before You Go Act," which would require schools to educate students about how much they can expect to earn with a given degree before they go into debt to get it. Armed with such information through detailed financial counseling, a student might decide to pursue an engineering degree instead of one in the liberal arts. Sen. Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, another Republican candidate for president, also advocate requiring colleges to disclose graduate employment. Such openness would help students know whether an institution provides value and adequate training.

Performance-based data also should be used to choke off federally backed loans from programs that deliver little to nothing in the way of employability. Nationwide, student loan debt totals more than $1 trillion — and the figure is rising. It makes no sense for taxpayers to subsidize diplomas that leave students unable to repay their loans. Federal student loan relief programs already have reduced payments to the point that the program has an annual deficit of more than $20 billion, which gets piled onto the national debt. If colleges knew there was a chance that degree programs or entire colleges could be cut off from tuition financing, they might actually take steps to reform those programs.

Which brings us to another needed higher education reform: accreditation of more competency-based degree programs. Colleges and universities everywhere should take a close look at what the nonprofit, online Western Governors University is doing to train people in fields that need skilled workers. The university, which offers classes to Nevadans, charges a flat per-term fee that allows students to complete as much coursework as they can. Once the material is mastered, they move on. They're not locked into a one-size-fits-all syllabus that requires everyone to start and finish a class at the same time. That's bang for the buck. WGU's more-for-less approach turns the status-quo model for higher education upside down.

It's downright outrageous that Washington cares so little about what colleges produce, but cares so much about students' personal behavior. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, intended to guarantee men and women equal access to education and prohibit sexual discrimination at college campuses, is commonly used to trample students' free speech and due process rights. Title IX requires colleges that receive federal funding to adopt grievance procedures that quickly resolve complaints that go far beyond discrimination to include allegations of sexual harassment and assault. This has turned panels of college administrators, who are in no way attorneys or officers of the law, into tribunals that judge guilt based on a preponderance of evidence (more than 50 percent) rather than beyond a reasonable doubt.

The result has been students railroaded over noncriminal behavior and protected expression, and schools losing time and again in court after being sued. The next president should rein in the U.S. Department of Education and ensure Title IX compliance doesn't infringe on Americans' rights.

The global economy is changing industry and requiring workers to adapt. Higher education should be forced to adapt as well.