In a speech billed as his “vision for the direction the Department of Education for 2023,” Secretary Miguel Cardona gave signals as to how the Biden Administration might assess and attempt to quantify the value of higher education.  While the speech, delivered to national PTA members in Washington, DC, was focused primarily on K-12 education, Cardona called on policymakers to “raise the bar in education and lead the world” by summoning “a collective will to fight complacency and status quo in education with the same passion we used to fight COVID.”  

From a policy perspective, while Cardona’s “raise the bar” approach is focused on issues related to elementary and secondary education, his comments related to teacher salaries were particularly noteworthy.  During his speech, he remarked that during the past 25 years wages for college graduates increased by 28% while teacher salaries have only gone up 2%. He also noted that the Department will be looking at teacher salaries nationwide to determine how they measure up to salaries of people with similar degrees but in different jobs within the state.

With regard to pathways to college and career, Cardona said the U.S. K-12 and college systems are too disconnected, especially related to skills for high paying jobs in STEM and career and technical education fields.  He called on local colleges to work with K-12 schools to offer dual enrollment programs as early as 11^th grade, so students can graduate from high school having already earned an associate degree or certificate.
These subtle hints at the Department’s higher education priorities will be important for us to follow throughout the year, particularly as it relates to its recent formal request for information on how they can better measure the financial value of college.