Will higher education reform become another ideological war zone.

• Author: Glastris, Paul
• Position: Editor's Note

Back in the spring, with the Trump White House in disarray and the GOP-controlled Congress unable to make headway on repealing Obamacare (or do much of anything else), conservative media outlets like Fox News were struggling to keep audiences engaged. So they hit on the strategy of minimizing D.C. coverage and instead running wall-to-wall stories about PC-related incidents on college campuses, such as left-wing student protesters shutting down speaking appearances by Ann Coulter and the like. That strategy not only helped shore up the conservative media's flagging ratings; it also proved once again its power to shape base Republican opinion. A June Pew Research Center poll found that 58 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents think universities have a negative effect on the country, up from 45 percent a year earlier. No change was detected among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters.

That big asymmetrical shift is a danger sign. For years, higher education policy has been what you might call "pre-ideological." That is, the two parties haven't had fixed, irreconcilable differences on the subject. Everyone knows that Republicans and Democrats line up on opposite sides of issues like tax cuts for the wealthy and government-funded health coverage. But on most higher education issues--say, federal grants for academic research--there's long been rough bipartisan consensus. Democrats maybe stronger supporters of expanding Pell Grants, and Republicans more resistant to regulations on for-profit colleges. But even on these issues, individual lawmakers occasionally cross party lines.

This ideological fluidity is one of the reasons we at the Washington Monthly look forward to putting together our annual College Guide, as we have for more than a decade. Though a magazine of the left, we know that on this issue, at least, we're not talking just to our own side. The Bush and Obama administrations were both open to our arguments for more disclosure of federal data on individual colleges' costs and student outcomes. And the metrics we use to rate schools--recruiting and graduating students of modest means, creating the ideas and technologies that fuel economic growth, and encouraging students to serve their country and communities--defy ideological labels. Rather, they sum up what most Americans should expect colleges to deliver in return for $160 billion in annual federal subsidies for student aid.

If there is a bias in our rankings, it's...