After a year-long investigation, a 19-member panel convened by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to consider how best to improve the American colleges and universities has issued its report and recommendations.

The panel – The Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education – and its report were the topics of much hand wringing among higher education leaders. Some leaders went so far as to speculate the Commission would recommend extending the reach of No Child Left Behind into the college classroom by initiating a program of nationwide standardized testing of college students.

Ultimately, to the relief of many, the report included no such recommendation.

The Commission did, however, have harsh words for U.S. higher education, stating that it “needs to improve in dramatic way” and “is in need of urgent reform.” Higher education, according to the Commission, is akin to a “mature enterprise: increasingly risk-averse, at times self-satisfied, and unduly expensive.”

Certain Commission recommendations are anticipated to stir significant controversy. For example, the Commission recommends the “creation of a robust culture of accountability” which should include the development of a federal unit-level database meant to track individual students’ academic, enrollment and financial aid information. The proposal has many higher education, student and privacy advocates concerned.

And while the Commission did fall short of recommending a national standardized test for college students, it did recommend individual institutions assess learning through the use of tests such as the College Learning Assessment. Colleges initiate “value-added” measurement of student learning by taking students’ academic baselines into account when assessing results. The report encourages individual institutions to develop, measure and report “meaningful student outcomes” in an effort to give parents, students and policy makers a clear understanding of how much students’ skills have improved over time.

The Commission’s report does include a series of laudable principles, particularly regarding financial aid. For example, the report calls for increasing the purchasing power of the Pell Grant – the nation’s primary need-based financial aid program. It recommends the simplification of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), an idea that will likely be broadly embraced. The Commission also calls for the consolidation of student aid programs, noting that there are currently 20 such programs at the federal level. However, the report provides few specifics on how it would achieve its objectives.

Unfortunately, two-year colleges – which now enroll upwards of 45% of the nation’s undergraduates – receive little specific mention in the Commission’s report.

At this point, it is unclear if the Commission’s report will result in significant change. It is possible that Secretary Spellings and the administration will attempt to implement certain recommendations through the regulatory process. However, most of the most significant recommendations would require Congressional action.

One of the 19 Commission members – David Ward, the former Chancellor of UW-Madison and current president of the American Council on Education – did not sign his name to the final version of the report.