Especially Interested?

Some educators admit that higher education has become a special interest in the strict sense of the word, but claim that the growth of universities and of the government have not forced them to give up their important position in American society.

"Yes, we are a special interest," says Rosenzweig.

But Rosenzweig and Shattuck agree that the important mission of the university in American society is "essential to national well-being." Therefore they say their lobbying efforts are not on the same plane as the more self-interested industry or labor lobbies because they further policies which are in the "public interest."

The nation's universities deserve the preferential treatment they have received in the past because of their vital position in American society, educators say. By conducting basic scientific research, universities are the engine of economic competitiveness. Colleges and universities are also the "bearers" of the values and habits such as free speech and respect for truth which are important to maintaining American society, they say.

But Education Department officials argue that higher education has become something less than the administrators' rosy picture of the ivy-covered university. "They always pull this moral argument where higher education is on the same level as the flag, mom and apple pie," says Miller.

"What higher education really is now is a big business," Miller says. "All you have to do is look at Harvard's $3 billion endowment to see that."

This argument is at the core of Bennett's indictments of higher education. Harvard's endowment skyrockets but so does tuition, he says. At the same time the quality of undergraduate education has dropped across the country, he says. Bennett uses these points to argue that colleges and universities are a big business that no longer delivers on the product.

While higher education officials agree that their institutions have become "big," they say it is in response to their increasing importance in society.

"We are now beginning to see the consequences of the fact that our major universities have become very large and complex businesses," Rosenzweig wrote in a newsletter this month.

Harvard lobbyist Jane H. Corlett sees that this growth has further subjected higher education to governmental jurisdiction and criticism.

"It's becoming harder and harder to convince Congress that we are not a special interest," says Corlett. "They are asking us more and more to act as a business, which has forced us to become more active in ways that appears like a special interest group."

But the way a special interest appears depends on whether the viewer is a budget-conscious Congressman, an ivory-tower academic, or a headline-grabbing Education Secretary. All agree, however, that higher education is being scrutinized much more closely and that government is willing to make serious cuts into what it once viewed as a sacred cow.