Kaplan CEO Andrew Rosen argues that the current crisis provides an opportunity to place questions of student learning, innovation and cost containment at the center of higher education reform debates, and that policymakers can look to for-profit colleges for key lessons about how to retool postsecondary education to reflect new priorities.

What do we learn if the Thiel fellows go on to be wildly successful? That taking the most academically gifted students in the country and putting them in an awesome program flush with resources is a good idea. It doesn't tell us much of anything about whether higher education is a good investment more generally.

What challenges and opportunities surround the push to make American higher education more productive?