The higher education system in America is broken, and without a major overhaul we will continue to produce under-educated graduates unprepared for life and career. So is the stance of Kevin Carey, the policy director of Education Sector, an DC think tank. And he has a very good point too, one which effects you directly as a college student and even as a recent graduate.

In this month's Democracy journal Carey details the problem of reputation in today's University system, the secretive nature of withholding data, and how only Washington has the power to institute the type of transparent reform the system needs. Chief among Carey's concerns is that lack of metrics for measuring University progress:

The information deficit turns college into what economists call a "reputational good." If you go to the store and buy a shirt, you can learn pretty much everything you need to know before you buy it: the material, where it was made, how to clean it, and so on. College is different. You’re paying up-front for professors you’ve never met and degree programs you probably haven’t even chosen yet. Instead, you rely on what other people think of the college. Of course, some students simply have to go the college that’s nearest to them or least expensive. But if you have the luxury of choosing, in all likelihood, you choose based on reputation.

The problem of reputation creates a very imbalanced system ... on in which it is hard to make ground on the traditional education leaders.

While most colleges aren’t in Harvard’s league and never will be, they pay attention to industry leaders. Luxury schools set standards for faculty salaries, student amenities, and other expensive things that ripple through the higher education sector as a whole. The status-seeking mindset is infectious. Colleges all want to become more important, and they all know how to get there–spend and charge more.

But, Carey continues to argue, simply spending to catch up creates more expensive education without producing verifiable results. This is why higher ed costs have risen 500% since the 1980s, while standard of living has increased less than 200%. So what we are left with is sky-rocketing educational costs, that are becoming harder and harder to pay ... especially since the system is not creating smarter or more career-ready graduates.

The inefficiency comes from the large amount of operational freedom that comes from the non-profit status of the universities. Further protected by their public status, they fall under the protection of both state and federal governments whenever their is a push to release data on current and past student achievement information. This information can be used, according to Carey, to develop better measurement metrics.

Fortunately, there has never been a better time for transparency. The IT revolution has exponentially increased the potential for compiling nuanced data about college teaching and student learning, as well as crucial information about what happens to students years after they leave school. Because higher education is a national market–and because the institutions that sit atop the current status hierarchy are adamantly opposed to disclosing any new information that might call their primacy into question–only the federal government can make this happen.

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Recent years have also seen huge leaps forward in the ability to track student outcomes after college, particularly in the labor market. Like all modern organizations, colleges have converted their student records to electronic form. That information can be linked to other large databases, like the earnings and employment records maintained by every state as part of the unemployment insurance system. States like Florida already use these data systems to compile employment outcomes for every public university in the state, including earnings and sector of employment.

The results of this type of transformation (as unlikely or far off as it may be) should be pretty clear to the job seeker. Brushing aside the obvious fact that if these institutions teach better, you will be smarter and more prepared for your career, the role of University reputation reverberates throughout your career. Reputation serves not only the purpose of attracting students to a school, it also attracts job offers to the student. Regardless of the actual education experience, skills, or other job-ready assets, someone who attended Harvard is no doubt going to have a leg-up over someone who attended, say, my alma mater, American.

By providing an actual metric of progress in education and learning, reputation can be (at least partially) thrown out the window. Say I'm applying for a job. The employer sees that, while Harvard still has an advantage over American, the performance of American graduates in the work place in comparison to other colleges has increased by a higher rate than that of Harvard during the period in which I was enrolled. This metric would serve to help students at schools with traditionally lower reputations standout against competition that would have fared much better in a reputation-only system.

An interesting essay by Carey, one has to question the feasibility of the type of reform he suggests. Especially in the midst of a (recovering?) economic recession, and with the administration already entrenched in the type of long-term big budget reform that happens once per generation, at most (this, of course, would be Health Care). We'll see if it gains any traction, but regardless, the essay could serve as a useful discussion piece as you set about on your career with only your wit, smarts, experiences and (fortunately or not) the reputation of your undergraduate degree.