Washington Monthly - September/October 2014 - 44

conceived notion," Warren urged. "No congressman wants an
ugly rating for an institution in his district."
It was a rare glimpse at a lobbying operation that even critics say has been as effective as it is little known: the one that
represents American colleges and universities.
NAICU, which advocates for private nonprofit colleges and
universities, is one of the "Big Six" trade associations that represent public universities, private universities, community colleges, and other higher education interests. The biggest is the
American Council on Education, or ACE, which houses many
other higher ed trade organizations in its headquarters at One
Dupont Circle-an address that, to Washington insiders, is
shorthand for the higher ed lobby.
Virtually unknown outside the Beltway, the denizens of
One Dupont have been remarkably effective over the years, as
evidenced by the nearly $200 billion the federal government
spends annually on higher education, mostly in the form of student financial aid, tax breaks, and research grants. Another tes-

Virtually unknown outside
the Beltway, the higher
education lobby has been
remarkably effective, winning
nearly $200 billion annually
in federal aid for colleges
and universities. Another
testament to its power:
most of this funding comes
with few strings attached.
tament to the lobby's power is that most of this funding comes
with few strings attached. Schools get the money with, by and
large, no requirements that they control their costs, assure their
quality, or meet other meaningful standards of performance.
But with voters increasingly alarmed about the everrising price of college, which has quintupled student loan debt
in the past ten years, the Obama administration has begun
pushing policies to get better results. Last summer, the president announced that he was directing the Department of Education to use existing federal data to create a system that
would rate the performance of each of America's thousands
of colleges and universities on such things as graduation rates
and net price-the actual amount paid, per student, after discounts and financial aid. The stated aim is to provide students
and their parents with more and better information so they can
make savvier choices when choosing a college, putting more
market pressure on the system.
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September/October 2014

The ratings are the first step in a broader accountability drive by the administration and some other elected officials. Once a system of measuring college and university performance is established, Obama wants to tie federal funding to
those results-a connection a growing number of states have
already made in their higher education budgets. And because
any performance measurement system is only as good as the
quality of the underlying data, a bipartisan group of lawmakers
has introduced legislation in Congress to strengthen the information the federal government collects and makes public.

o far, the political jockeying over these measures has
mostly taken place behind closed doors. But the fight
is likely to become more public this fall, when the administration plans to release the first draft of its new ratings
proposal. While some congressmen have vowed to expressly block him from doing it, Obama has been able to move
forward with the rating system without congressional approval, which has become a signature example of his "pen
and phone" strategy to advance his agenda in a gridlocked
Washington. But for the very same reason, it is drawing the
ire of Republican lawmakers who portray it as a burdensome
new regulation pushed by an out-of-control presidency-
in short, a perfect illustration of what their broader battle
with Obama is all about. And behind the scenes, groups like
NAICU are stoking that fight.
Higher ed lobbyists contend that their influence is nowhere near as great as their critics suggest. "People think of
the guy in the raincoat and the cash. They don't understand
what lobbying is. Lobbying is using First Amendment rights
to talk to members of Congress," said Sarah Flanagan, vice
president for government relations at NAICU. "I'm always
amused at the descriptions of our enormous power," added
Terry Hartle, senior vice president for government and public
affairs at ACE. "We don't have PACs, we don't do fund-raisers,
we can't deliver votes."
But while the lobby largely doesn't play in the campaign
money game (except for private for-profit colleges like the University of Phoenix and its parent company, the Apollo Group),
its power derives from other sources. The Big Six-ACE, NAICU,
the American Association of Community Colleges, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the Association of American Universities, and the Association of Public
and Land-grant Universities-had combined budgets of $110
million in 2011, the last year for which the figures are available
from documents they are required to file with the Internal Revenue Service. Such resources allow these groups to hire smart
and knowledgeable researchers, wonks, and ex-policymakers,
often from the government agencies that regulate them. For instance, ACE in February brought aboard Dan Madzelan, former
acting assistant secretary for post-secondary education at the
Department of Education, as one of its top lobbyists.
The greatest source of the higher ed lobby's influence derives from the fact that all members of Congress have colleges and universities in their states and districts. These institu-

Washington Monthly - September/October 2014

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