Universities, now so central to the economies of post-industrial cities, are nervous about Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' plans to overhaul the nation's higher education system. Spelling's take:

“If you want to buy a new car, you go online and compare a full range of models, makes and pricing options,” she says. “The same transparency and ease should be the case when students and families shop for colleges, especially when one year of college can cost more than a car.”

Some don't like the car analogy. Choosing a college is a more like choosing a spouse — it can't be quantified, says Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity University in Washington, D.C.

While any method of measuring academic quality will create some undeserving winners and losers and a motive to teach (or administer) to whatever standards or tests, that nonetheless seems a poor argument for shirking data altogether. Then again, it's equally unclear why the federal government should be doing the measuring.

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It's not just Republicans who are questioning universities' exemptions from accountability. The NCAA, which is being forced to defend its tax-exempt status, is arguing that "The fundamental purpose of intercollegiate athletics is the education of student-athletes in both the classroom and on the field or court… The scale of the sport does not alter the fundamental purpose." Yes, this is every bit as dumb and dishonest as it sounds.

The NCAA's letter was in response to this blistering inquiry from outgoing Ways and Means chair Bill Thomas. And incoming chair Charlie Rangel has made clear he's equally interested in holding the Association's feet to the fire. Meanwhile, an annual letter last week from the IRS said a priority for 2007 would be income unrelated to the tax-exempt purpose of colleges and universities—which surely means they too will be taking a close look at the exemption (which, by the way, only applies to monies spent to further an institution's academic mission in some way other than simply generating revenue).

There's a long tradition of Congress getting involved in sports, and of long hearings with little follow-through. My gut is we'll have high profile hearings, followed by the NCAA agreeing to whatever new self-regulations, and then business as usual, with business of course as the operative word, except for the big sport student-athletes (for whom athletes, of course, is the operative word).

And just because, here's a highlight from the great manager and nonsense speaker Casey Stengel's 45 minutes of testimony before Congress in 1958 about Major League Baseball's monopoly exemption. When asked if his team would keep winning, Stengel replied:

"Well, I will tell you I got a little concern yesterday in the first three innings when I saw the three players I had gotten rid of, and I said when I lost nine what am I going to do and when I had a couple of my players I thought so great of that did not do so good up to the sixth inning I was more confused but I finally had to go and call on a young man in Baltimore that we don't own and the Yankees don't own him, and he is doing pretty good, and I would actually have to tell you that I think we are more like a Greta Garbo-type now from success."

Stengel was followed by Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle, who cut to the chase: "My views are just about the same as Casey's."