David Willetts, the Universities Minister, said: "The substantial rise in the number of graduate vacancies demonstrates that confidence in the UK economy is growing and businesses really value the skills the UK's first-rate graduates can bring to their companies.
It was a full-on attack from a Washington insider and it hurt, especially when Stiglitz said many of those responsible for forcing countries such as Thailand and Indonesia into deeper, longer recessions were "third-rate graduates from first-rate universities".
Two-thirds rated graduates as poor or fair in math.
Three-quarters of both groups rated graduates as poor or fair on writing.
Called the American Diploma Project, it found that 60percentt of employers rated graduates' skills as only "fair" or "poor".
Given that a college education can cost as much as or more than a house, prospective students should be required to sign a "truth in enrollment" form, akin to the truth-in-lending statements required for home purchases, confirming they have received information about the institution's costs, completion rates, graduates' employment rates, and graduates' salary information by major.
The TEF will be based on metrics – in other words, scores in the NSS, drop-out rates graduate employment rates and maybe even the proportion of "good" degrees.
This new report which includes data on earnings, employment rates, graduate school earnings bumps, and commonly chosen professions presents clear evidence to the contrary.
Beyond the abstract discussion of retention rates, graduate employment and "learning gain" are human stories that can richly describe what happens when university teaching isn't up to scratch.
The number and impact of the articles published by a researcher are of ever-increasing value for evaluating and rating graduate programs in emerging countries.
