DeRuy: Somewhat related to that, you spoke at Northeastern University recently about our viability as a democracy being intertwined with education, of universities as bastions of liberty and freedom, and about the risk to our democracy of retreating from that. And then in response to an audience-member question, you said we haven’t done our best work yet on righting and writing, both spellings, the narrative around education as an individual versus a public good. Expand on that a little.

Mitchell: Really since the Land-Grant College Act of 1862, American higher education, particularly public higher education, has been a compact between states, the federal government, and families and students. And what’s important about that is that there is an investment for each of those three, but also a return to each of those three. Clearly, individuals benefit. They improve their economic standing. They improve long-term health, the long-term stability of their families and communities. But the state and federal government also benefit. There is a public good here. And the public good can be expressed in the macro economy in terms of the growth in GDP, and the competitiveness of American businesses and industry. But it’s also the social and public good of a strong democracy, in which citizens are educated and formed and are able to be critical thinkers about the issues that are put in front of them, whether those are local community issues like the town budget, or big national and international issues like climate change or increasing inequality across the globe.

DeRuy: What is your biggest accomplishment, and what is your biggest failure?

Mitchell: I think that the biggest accomplishment of this administration has been to focus all parts of the higher-education community on student outcomes. And I think that’s been an important shift from looking at inputs and processes—to really ask the question, “How are students benefiting from this program, this institution, this investment in federal financial aid, this family investment?” And I think that our focus on outcomes is now rooted in institutions, it’s rooted in the accrediting process, and, increasingly, I think it’s rooted in the conversations that families have around the dinner table—I know around ours—about which colleges are providing the best outcomes for students. And in that, I think our College Scorecard has played a very meaningful role.

Biggest failure? The thing that I worry the most about is the completion crisis. I worry that we have not done enough working with institutions to increase the graduation rates, particularly for the most vulnerable students, for first-generation students, for low-income students, for minority students. There is good news: We’ve graduated the most diverse college graduating class ever. A million more African American and Latino students are in college today than there were when the administration began. But we still have to improve those completion rates.