The White House won’t say who is coming to its higher-education summit on Thursday, but it looks as if elite institutions and state flagships will be well represented, and for-profit colleges will be scarcer.
On Tuesday the leaders of several selective institutions and large public universities confirmed to The Chronicle that they planned to attend the event, which will focus on expanding college access for needy students.
Roughly 140 colleges are expected to attend. To get in the door, they had to commit to taking concrete steps to help more low-income students enroll in and complete college.
The White House has maintained tight control over the guest list and agenda for Thursday’s summit, asking attendees to wait until Tuesday to announce that they will attend, and until Thursday morning to reveal the “commitments” they’ll make at the event.
The final list may still be taking shape, with additional invitations sent to college leaders in recent days, according to a college lobbyist.
But Steve Gunderson, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, the main lobbying group for for-profit colleges, said that his member institutions—which collectively enroll four million students—had not been invited. He called their exclusion “unfortunate.”
“Today postsecondary education reaches beyond traditional liberal-arts programs at four-year institutions,” he said.
A representative of the Apollo Education Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, said the company had not been invited either.
A White House official declined on Tuesday to release the list of attendees, but said that for-profit institutions were expected to attend.
The summit will be jointly led by the first lady, Michelle Obama, and officials of the National Economic Policy Council and the Department of Education. In December the White House spokesman Jay Carney described the event as an effort to ensure that “we reach disadvantaged students early enough so that they are on a path to succeed in college and in their careers, and to help them wherever possible to match to the colleges where they are most likely to succeed.”
The Power of the ‘Bully Pulpit’
The gathering comes on the heels of a series of smaller meetings between the White House and college presidents, and as the Obama administration is crafting a college-rating system that will judge institutions based on measures of access and affordability.
James R. Kvaal, deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, told attendees in November that the goal of the summit would be “not simply to have a conference” but “to mobilize new action that makes significant, meaningful progress.”
The administration hasn’t said what role it will play in that mobilization, beyond Thursday’s convening. But participants said they don’t expect officials to propose any major new spending on college-access programs or federal student aid.
Even so, they welcomed the White House’s interest, saying the summit could focus the nation’s attention on persistent gaps in college access and could spur colleges to do more to deal with them. As Marvin Krislov, president of Oberlin College, put it, “there’s no more powerful bully pulpit than the White House.”
“Symbolically, it’s huge,” agreed David Maxwell, president of Drake University. “Elevating it to the level of a White House summit has a great deal of power.”
Robert M. Shireman, a former Education Department official who now leads an organization called California Competes, said he hoped the event would put pressure on “a wider set of colleges” than those attending “to make this a major priority.”
“While the federal government plays a big role in access and success, there are pieces of the puzzle that only colleges can address,” he said. “We need our more-selective colleges to be reaching into low-income communities and providing that opportunity, taking a chance on people. They don’t do that enough.”
Jimmy G. Cheek, chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, said he hoped the event would send a message to low-income students as well, telling them higher education is critical and within their reach.
“During the campaign, the president said, ‘Yes, we can,’” Mr. Cheek said. “Now, he should say, ‘Yes, you should.’”
Looking for Friends With Funds
One goal of the event appears to be connecting colleges to foundations that could support their access efforts. Randy Woodson, chancellor of North Carolina State University, said that at a meeting with public-college leaders last fall, White House officials made clear that they were trying to attract philanthropic attention to the cause.
“My sense is that the White House will be looking to the philanthropic sector to rally around programs that have the potential to help students advance through high school and get to college,” he said.
But some participants in Thursday’s summit said they were skeptical the president could achieve his college-access goals without a significant expansion of federal aid.
“At some point, we have to decide as a country whether we are willing to make the kind of investments that we made in 50s and 60s, with the GI Bill and the Higher Education Act,” said Philip A. Glotzbach, president of Skidmore College. “Today we spend a lot more money, but proportionate to the cost of higher education, federal support has not kept pace.”
Oberlin’s Mr. Krislov said he hoped that the event would lead to lasting collaborations among partipants, and not just be a “one-shot meeting.”
“This is a very significant challenge,” he said, “and it will take more than one meeting, or even a few meetings, to address.”
Andy Thomason contributed to this article.
