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When there is a raging debate on higher education, a lot seems too little. What exactly does it take to ensure quality education for Americans? This is a real discussion we must have rather than smothering the issue with simplistic answers.

However, the truth remains that there are no simple answers and the endeavor is rather complicated. Higher education will be actually degraded and not improved by simplification of standards.

For instance, take the issue of graduation rate, one of the simplest measures to measure success of higher education. In order to enhance our country’s global competitive presence, our President put forth a highly ambitious goal which gave a major push to the agenda of college completion on a national level.

The endeavor here is to bring back our country right to the top with relation to higher education by enhancing college graduation rates by the year 2020. This goal definitely has a common sense appeal with its straightforwardness as graduation is after all what universities and colleges are all about.

It is easier to measure higher education success in terms of graduation and also use this to hold the concerned people accountable. Here again, while it seems simple, it is actually not so. We must indulge in a critical graduation numbers analysis especially analysis of the means used to enhance the rates. Otherwise by 2020, we may find that we have indeed reached the goal but have very few well educated people.

So, what exactly is the complication in this? The goal itself as a matter of fact says that there must be an increase in the number of Americans with college degrees. Though we do need degrees, what is represented by the degree must be taken into account. The person obtaining the degree must be able to function effectively in this increasingly competitive global environment.

There has been a great emphasis by many including the Association of American Colleges and Universities that the student learning breadth and quality of education is as important as graduation rates in order to effectively reach our President’s 2020 graduation rate goal.

Are we interested only in increased graduation rates and nothing else? Well, what we must be interested in is an absolute graduate numbers. Just as we work towards enhancing college completion, we must also expand higher education access as pointed out by an Education Trust report.

Excluding students for whom graduating is a highly challenging preposition is one of the ways of improving graduation rate. If colleges under pressure resort to this, it could be disastrous for those who are already under represented in universities and colleges.

Also, the focus on academic rigor and quality will severely be lacking and this in turn will lead to elimination of difficult courses and reducing number of required units. This will essentially be paramount to cheapening of degrees.

The answer is obviously not to reduce quality of education in order to enhance graduation rates. In our complex higher education enterprise, it is not advisable to focus only on graduation rates. It is imperative to work out effective measures by recognizing the limitations and complexities involved in the graduation rate number.