Trust's Assumptions Are Unreasonable at Best

Chronicle of Higher Education - Letter to the Editor

Education Trust's unreasonable, if not outlandish, research assumptions and untested data lead to research findings that generate sensational headlines and have the potential to detract from serious policy discussions. It strains credibility for Education Trust to report that less than one-half percent of U.S. four-year colleges and universities effectively serve low-income students.

NAICU Letter to the Christian Science Monitor

Re: Obama's biased bashing of career schools

There's a touch of irony here: In response to what you view as "biased bashing of career schools" by the Obama administration (The Monitor's View, October 7), you respond with your own biased bashing of traditional colleges. That's hardly an example of the kind of accountability for all of American higher education which you claim to seek.

NAICU Letter to the Wall Street Journal

Re: "The Fat Envelope, Please"

Students and families considering private colleges should not be scared off by Mr. Kahn's pessimistic and largely anecdotal assessment of private higher education's affordability and value ("The Fat Envelope, Please," opinion, April 3). For many students, the silver lining in the recession will be larger student aid budgets and smaller tuition increases in 2009-10.

NAICU Letter to USA Today

Re: "Colleges duck tough cuts, keep hiking pay and tuition"

I was stunned that USA Today would ignore the significant sacrifices private colleges and universities are making to keep student out-of-pocket costs as low as possible during these tough times ("Colleges duck tough cuts, keep hiking pay and tuition," editorial, March 30).

NAICU Letter to the Chronicle of Higher Education

Re: “Washington Has Failed the Workhorses of American Higher Education”

Diane Auer Jones is a fair and independent thinker, and a friend of all sectors of higher education.  However, on the issue of a federal student unit record database, she does not fully understand the policy concerns of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (“Washington Has Failed the Workhorses of American Higher Education,” commentary, March 27). There is a legitimate privacy question here, and to dismiss NAICU’s motives as being otherwise diminishes the very real changes in privacy policy that have emerged as these databases are built throughout the nation. 

NAICU Letter Printed in the Western Washington Front

Re: "Government subsidizing hurts tuition"

Stephen Nichols offers the perfect prescription for making American higher education unaffordable and inaccessible — that is, by cutting federal student aid programs ("Government subsidizing hurts tuition," July 22). Every piece of existing empirical evidence refutes the claim that federal student aid feeds college tuition increases.

Aid to College Students

New York Times - NAICU Letter to the Editor

Timothy Egan’s dismissal of the unprecedented round of new student aid initiatives at private colleges and universities as cosmetic belies any reasonable interpretation of the word and calls for a reality check (“The Lords of Higher Learning,” column, March 18).

NAICU Letter to Forbes

Re: "Economics 101"

Alex Davidson misses crucial differences between higher education and the for-profit business world ("Economics 101," November 12). Unlike makers of automobiles and household applicances, the nation's private, nonprofit colleges and universities provide the same quality of "product" to their students, without regard to their income. But low- and middle-income students are not the only ones subsized. The 13 percent of our students who pay full sticker price are too. The average price of tuition at our schools covers only two-thirds of the cost to the institution to provide an education.

Letter Printed in the Washington Times

Overlooked in your story about transparency in higher education ("Colleges to let public glimpse insider data," Nation, Tuesday) was the recently initiated U-CAN college consumer Web site. The University and College Accountability Network (www.ucan-network.org), made available by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) on Sept. 26, gives prospective students and parents free, user-friendly and concise consumer information on hundreds of private institutions. The content and format of the Web site were shaped by focus groups with consumers.

Letter Printed in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Because of the great significance of learning-outcomes assessment in Washington and on campuses across the nation, I believe it's important to lay out clearly the position of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities ("A Year Later, Spellings Report Still Makes Ripples," The Chronicle, September 28).