On Monday, the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education released the second draft of what will ultimately become a final report, most likely sometime in September. Unfortunately, all the authors seemed to do between draft one and draft two is tone down some of their criticisms of colleges and universities—apparently, ivory tower denizens are a sensitive lot—while keeping in most of their bigger-government proposals, such as creating a “national strategy” for higher education and, of course, spending a lot more taxpayer cash.

Without question, there are going to have to be major changes between draft two and draft three to make the commission’s final report even the least bit palatable. Unfortunately, based on what we’ve seen so far, the best we can probably hope for is the same rat poison, with just a little bit more sugar sprinkled on top.