Three years after U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling's national commission on higher education, and nearly a decade after No Child Left Behind revolutionized k-12 accountability, there is little agreement on what accountability in higher education should look like. While more students are enrolling in (and failing to complete) postsecondary education than ever before, scholars and policymakers have paid far less attention to questions of how well colleges are teaching students and helping them earn degrees while simultaneously contributing new research and scholarship. In "Accountability in American Higher Education" prominent academics, entrepreneurs, and journalists assess the obstacles to, and potential opportunities for, accountability in higher education in America. Key issues include new measures of college student learning, power education data systems, implications for faculty tenure, accreditation, for-profit higher education, community colleges, and the political dynamics of reform. This volume provides insightful analysis that legislators, administrators, and consumers can use to engage institutions of higher education in the difficult but necessary conversation of accountability. Contents include: (1) Introduction (Kevin Carey and Mark Schneider); (2) On the Foundations of Standardized Assessment of College Outcomes and Estimating Value Added (Jeffrey Steedle); (3) Faculty Scholarly Productivity at American Research Universities (Lawrence Martin); (4) Student Unit Record Systems and Postsecondary Accountability: Exploiting Emerging Data Resources (Peter Ewell); (5) Higher Education Finance and Accountability (Bridget Terry-Long); (6) Death of a University (Kevin Carey); (7) What's Governance Got to do With It? (Anne Neal, Erin O'Connor, Maurice Black); (8) How college rankings are going global (and why their spread will be good for higher education) (Ben Wildavsky); (9) The Politics of Higher Education (Mark Schneider); (10) Accountability for Community Colleges: Moving Forward (Sara Goldrick-Rab); (11) Scaling Back Tenure: How Claims of Academic Freedom Limit Accountability in Higher Education (Naomi Riley); and (12) Policy Barriers to Post-Secondary Cost Control (Burck Smith).