This letter to the editor by Secretary Margaret Spellings appeared in the Detroit News on March 6, 2007.

The U.S. Department of Education is not "lobbying" for a highly regulated "federal database" requiring "a mountain" of new data ("Feds shouldn't bury colleges in red tape," Feb. 22 editorial). Instead, we want families to be able to access existing data so they can make informed decisions. Which universities produce the highest-earning graduates? What degrees do employers value the most? Where are the best prospects for continuing study?

Already, 40 states have privacy-protected higher education information systems in place. We have proposed financial incentives to help connect these islands of data while bringing other states into the process. One promising sign is that all 50 governors have agreed to use a more accurate and easy-to-compare high school graduation rate.

Such actions will help the department update and modernize its College Opportunities Online Locator, or COOL. Currently, we can tell you anything about first-time, full-time college students who have never transferred — about half of the nation's undergraduates. This leaves out many nontraditional students, including disadvantaged and minority students and transfers from community colleges.

Why is it important that we act? Because the current system lacks "clear, reliable information about cost and quality," according to the bipartisan Commission on the Future of Higher Education. One South Dakota father of college-age children put it well: "For $20,000 to $40,000 or more per year," he told USA Today, "there should be a system in place that allows me to kick the tires, look under the hood and compare gas mileage from one model to the next."

At a time when 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs call for postsecondary education or training, it is unacceptable that our graduation rates are stagnating relative to other nations'.

Are we — taxpayers, parents and students — getting what we pay for? It's time we found out.

Margaret Spellings
Secretary of Education