Definitely, it's from an AACRO conference which is full of collegiate registrars and provosts. The message may ignore contrary data to get a political agenda across. Until I can review the actual reports the argument is based upon, I can't really say for certain. To truly analyze the information across the nation the feds will have to create a US student tracking and lump it in with K-12 & IRS data. There's a quiet movement to do so - but there's resistance to that idea hence the discussion. Resistance stems from the orwellian aspects while proponents trend along "we spend federal dollars on these diplomas, we need to make sure they're doing GOOD for the society somehow." A figure quoted at the same talk was that we spend 3% of our GDP on education.

I didn't say I agreed with what was said, it's just something that higher ed is talking about at the top of the greater organization and was worth a mention.

Personally I feel state academia is bloated and backwards and many changes need to be made. Admissions should be highly curtailed where the whole nation makes an effort towards math and science instead of 'getting a degree so you can get 10k$ extra starting out.' I'm still not convinced that the federal dollars lost to defaulting loans wouldn't be better spent on k-12 education.