• About Us
    • Join CAPPS Email List
    • What is Private Postsecondary Education
    • About ICEPAC
  • News
    • Legislation / Advocacy
  • Events
    • CAPPS Legislative Policy Conference 2021
    • 37th Annual Conference
    • Educational Advisors ~ Event Calendar
  • Resources
    • Classifieds
    • Professional Online Training Center
    • State and Federal Resources
    • Accreditors
    • Boards
    • Associations
  • CAPPS Member Portal & Archives
    • CAPPS Membership Directory
    • Conference Archives
    • Webinar Archives
    • Workshop Archives
    • CAPPS Member Portal
      • CAPPS Legislative Watch
    • Featured Members
    • Select Allied or School Benefits – Why be a CAPPS Member?
      • School Membership Application & Renewal Form
      • Allied Membership Application & Renewal Form
  • Awards
    • CAPPS Memorial Scholarships
    • Excellence in Community Service Awards
    • CAPPS Hall of Fame STAR Awards
    • Norma Ford Financial Aid Professional of the Year
    • School of the Year
    • Allied Member of the Year
California Association of Private Postsecondary Schools                        
916-447-5500
Email
        Login
CAPPS
  • About Us
    • Join CAPPS Email List
    • What is Private Postsecondary Education
    • About ICEPAC
  • News
    • Legislation / Advocacy
  • Events
    • CAPPS Legislative Policy Conference 2021
    • 37th Annual Conference
    • Educational Advisors ~ Event Calendar
  • Resources
    • Classifieds
    • Professional Online Training Center
    • State and Federal Resources
    • Accreditors
    • Boards
    • Associations
  • CAPPS Member Portal & Archives
    • CAPPS Membership Directory
    • Conference Archives
    • Webinar Archives
    • Workshop Archives
    • CAPPS Member Portal
      • CAPPS Legislative Watch
    • Featured Members
    • Select Allied or School Benefits – Why be a CAPPS Member?
      • School Membership Application & Renewal Form
      • Allied Membership Application & Renewal Form
  • Awards
    • CAPPS Memorial Scholarships
    • Excellence in Community Service Awards
    • CAPPS Hall of Fame STAR Awards
    • Norma Ford Financial Aid Professional of the Year
    • School of the Year
    • Allied Member of the Year

News

  • Home
  • News
  • Former Top Official in Obama’s Education Dept. Is Named President of ACE

Former Top Official in Obama’s Education Dept. Is Named President of ACE

  • Posted by CAPPS
  • Date

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Former Top Official in Obama’s Education Dept. Is Named President of ACE

By Goldie Blumenstyk JULY 20, 2017

WASHINGTON

Ted Mitchell, under secretary of education from 2014 to 2017, will take office at the American Council on Education as the Trump administration seeks to dismantle some of his policy priorities.

Ted Mitchell, a top U.S. Department of Education official during the Obama administration and an architect of several of the college and student-loan accountability regulations the Trump administration is now trying to dismantle, was named on Thursday as the new president of the American Council on Education.Mr. Mitchell said countering the “narrative that college doesn’t matter anymore for individuals and society” would be among his highest priorities for the organization, which represents about 1,800 college presidents on national policy issues.

Other core issues will be advocacy for the value of academic research and correcting public misimpressions about student debt that discourage from attending college “exactly the people” who need it most, he said in an interview.

Mr. Mitchell, 61, has served as a college president (at Occidental College), a vice chancellor and dean (at the University of California Los Angeles), a professor (at Dartmouth College), and a trustee (at Stanford University). He has also begun encountering higher education as a parent: His daughter is entering her freshman year in college, and his son is a high-school junior.

He will assume the council presidency on September 1, replacing Molly Corbett Broad, who has been in the post since 2008.

Mr. Mitchell became under secretary of education in 2014 and stayed until the very last day that the Democrats ran the Education Department, a process he frequently described as “sprinting to the tape.”

Several regulations put into effect during that period, including the gainful-employment rule and rules to help student-loan borrowers who were defrauded by their colleges, are now slated to be redrawn, at the behest of President Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. The GOP continues to control both chambers of Congress.

Still, Mr. Mitchell said he believed his previous work with Republicans in Congress on issues such as simplifying the student-aid-application process, show his ability to work with parties across the aisle. “I was a political appointee, but I’m not a politician,” he said.

A Vocal Advocate

This week both of his bosses at the department — the former education secretaries Arne Duncan and John B. King Jr. — blasted the Trump administration for its recent decisions to undo department policies, calling them “a huge step backward for our nation’s students.”

RELATED CONTENT
  • Who Does DeVos’s Department Really Represent?  PREMIUM
  • Behind a Stagnant Portrait of College Leaders, an Opening for Change
  • Video: Top U.S. Higher-Education Official Says Innovation Will Best Serve the ‘New Normal’ Students
  • When College Is Free, or Free(ish)  PREMIUM
  • Lessons From the Education Department’s Ratings Reversal  PREMIUM
  • Senate Confirms Ted Mitchell as Top U.S. Higher-Education Official

But Mr. Mitchell demurred when asked about those decisions. “Whether we like it or not, each administration has the opportunity to reregulate,” he said. “We’ll see how it comes out in the process.”The council itself wasn’t always a fan of the department’s initiatives during Mr. Mitchell’s tenure, particularly proposals like the one to create a government-run college-ratings system. (The department eventually abandoned the ratings idea in favor of an information tool now known as the College Scorecard.)

Mr. Mitchell said he expected the council to “continue to be vocal on behalf of the higher-ed community” in federal policy making. In addition to policies at the Education Department, he said the council would push for federal tax policies that protect the charitable deduction for donations to colleges, as well as for policies that protect undocumented students.

Before joining the department, Mr. Mitchell was chief executive of the New Schools Venture Fund, which invested in educational companies, and he remains a visible advocate of programs like competency-based education and other alternative approaches to higher education. The council has taken that view as well, with such projects as its program to accredit nontraditional education providers.

He said he expected that attention to continue at the council. “Innovation is on provosts’ and presidents’ minds,” Mr. Mitchell said.

As an organization of higher-education presidents, the council pays particular attention to leadership issues. And according to its latest survey, the college presidency remains overwhelmingly white and male.

Mr. Mitchell, who is both white and male, said programs like the training fellowships that the council runs were useful ways to diversify that pipeline, but he acknowledged that the industry and the council needed to do more. “I also think it’s important for people who look like me,” he said, “to be talking how important diversity is.”

Tag:American Council on Education, president

  • Share:
author avatar
CAPPS

Previous post

Zenith Unveils New Name for Everest Campuses

Next post

Students caught in the middle of for-profit college debate ask, 'What now?'

You may also like

Screenshot 2021-01-27 184030
Marsha Fuerst School of Nursing Students Administer Covid-19 Vaccines at New Vaccination Superstation in Chula Vista
27 January, 2021
Breaking News: Education Department Staff Recommends ACICS Recognition Termination
26 January, 2021

CECU | Career Education Colleges and Universities January 23, 2021 Late Friday, the U.S. Department of Education (“Department”) released a report authored by career staff that recommends terminating the federal …

Inside Higher Ed
A Threat to Private Colleges?
26 January, 2021

Search

Memorial Scholarship Information
Donate to ICEPAC
Become an Allied Member
Become a School Member
CAPPS Events

ABOUT US

  • What is Private Postsecondary Education
  • CAPPS Memorial Scholarships
  • Upcoming Conferences

MAILING ADDRESS:
California Association of
Private Postsecondary Schools
2520 Venture Oaks, Suite 170
Sacramento, CA  95833
info@cappsonline.org
www.cappsonline.org    

CappsOnlineMorpho Web Design.

2020 All Rights Reserved CappsOnline.org