The higher ed accountability movement has been dismissed by many academic insiders as a right-wing Trojan horse--a way of eroding academic freedom, ending tenure, and putting power in the hands of politically driven nonacademics. But that's the defensive posture of an academy that is very resistant to change--and, ironically, very slow to learn that the era of responsible transparency is here to stay.

Proof: the left-wing Center for American Progress is now lending its voice to the call:

The Center for American Progress has impeccable credentials for the Obama era. In the same way that the right-leaning Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute had the attention of the Bush administration, the Center for American Progress, headed by the former Clinton confidante John Podesta, is the think tank for the current White House. Time magazine called the center "Obama's idea factory" after his election last year.

Which makes the center's new white paper on higher education all the more interesting -- and, perhaps, all the more concerning to some college leaders.

The document, "Putting the Customer First in College," calls on the U.S. Education Department to create an Office of Consumer Protection in Higher Education that would (1) pressure colleges to produce significantly better data on how well they serve students, (2) develop a system for making that data available for students to use in choosing a college, and (3) direct students unhappy with their colleges' educational practices to federal, state, or accrediting officials who can help them resolve their complaints.

"In most sectors of our economy, customer focus is paramount, as it should be in education, too," the author, Louis Soares, writes in the paper. "Customer focus could yield a more student-centric system through the development and dissemination of user-friendly 'truth-in-education' information that helps students make 'best-fit' choices regarding which education provider to select based on customer preferences such as: academic quality, price, convenience, learning style, beginning education level and the anticipated return on their investment in education."

He adds: "The Office of Consumer Protection in Higher Education can be a powerful agent for righting [an] imbalance of knowledge and helping students succeed in college and save money to boot."

If that language sounds vaguely familiar, it should -- it echoes ideas inherent in Margaret Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which similarly bemoaned the lack of available data to help families and parents decide which institutions would best suit and serve them.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Charles Miller, who headed the Spellings panel, largely embraced the paper by Soares, saying (via e-mail) that it "could be a game changer" because of its "focus on the student as a consumer in a regulatory scheme."

"If the academy and its leaders in the associations and institutions react in a hostile way to this idea, or even with their usual delay and obfuscation, it will be a serious and tragic mistake," Miller wrote. "Similar to what happened in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the academy will end up getting pressure for more reports and stricter regulation instead of being active participants in planning and implementing an effective data system."

An aside: I expect to see knee jerk reactions CFP's consumer protection rhetoric. Defenders of the academic status quo have long objected to what they see as a "corporate" mentality infecting higher ed governance, one that devalues the educational enterprise by positioning students as consumers who expect to be served and pleased rather than challenged and educated. And while they have a point--if you've ever taught college, you know the frustrations of dealing with entitled students who think their parents' tuition payments mean that they are your boss and that their A's are pre-paid--they are wrong to use those frustrations to stonewall necessary change. The goal is to empower students to choose their schools wisely and to compel schools to be more student-centered while also enhancing higher ed's educational quality. it's not either/or: it's both/and.