The American Association for Higher Education (AAHE), is busy planning the 2005 National Conference on Higher Education. At one national conference in the late 1980s, a major topic of discussion among participants was the perceived and deeply felt lack of public recognition of higher education's achievements. The common wisdom in those days was that higher education leaders were not doing enough to persuade fellow citizens and the media to pay attention to higher education and appreciate its contributions to society. This document briefly compares higher education in the late 1980's to higher education now in 2005.