How do you improve U.S. higher education? According to experts who testified at an Education Department hearing yesterday, here's what we can do:

• Allow people to create “lifelong-learning accounts” in which they could make tax-deductible contribution toward funding their higher education. Employers could then match those funds, suggested Pam Tate, president of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning. She estimated that individuals could save $1,000 a year between their own contributions and an employer match.
• Raise expectations for high school students. Students should take a full four years in core curriculum, such as math, said David Conley, director for the Central for Educational Policy Research at the University of Oregon. That would better prepare them, not just to get into college, but also to succeed once they enter.
• Establish communities of support within higher education institutions for underrepresented minorities. Universities should learn more about their students’ cultures and hire more diverse faculty members, said Pam Silas, executive director of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

My problem with the first bullet point was immediate: employers don't want to do that. Ever since United Airlines cajoled the government into saying that United didn't need to honor its employee pension plans, other major companies -- like General Motors -- have followed suit. Companies that want to increase the bottom line would like nothing more than to dump employee benefit programs. Health care and retirement plans cost the company money. We're a capitalistic society, right? Why can't people pay for their own health care? Why can't they contribute to their own retirement plan? Why do employers have to match employee contributions to a 401(k)? And now the government wants employers to match funds for a higher-education savings plan?

Not going to happen. Now that United and GM have gotten out of their contracts with their employees, expect more large companies to do the same. Why cut executive salaries or alter outdated business models when we could have the government bail us out? Just watch: if things keep going the way they have been, employer-sponsored health care will be a thing of the past. Education accounts won't even be on the radar. The executives, who can afford private health care, will be fine. The poorest Americans could never afford private health care, anyway, and it's unlikely that they're in jobs where they're provided with health care by their employer. <cough>Wal-Mart</cough> No, it's the middle class -- the people who live comfortably, but on the razor's edge between surplus and debt -- who will suffer the most. Right now, they try as hard as they can to appear well-to-do (the prevalence of Ikea is evidence enough of that), but their well-to-do lifestyle will take a hit when they have to pay for their own health care. They'll default on their mortgages and move into smaller houses owned by the executives. They'll go into bankruptcy because, under the new laws written by the credit-card companies, they will be penalized for events outside of their control, since the credit-card companies would like you to believe that bankruptcy happens because people are irresponsible and thus need to be punished for going into debt (it's the only way they'll learn).

And where will people turn once they're bankrupt? Why, to the Good Book, of course. To Evangelical Protestantism and the promise of a better life in heaven. To good Christian morality. To blaming the ACLU, abortionists, People for the American Way, and the gays for the problems they're facing. God is punishing us for allowing such secular ideals to pervade our City upon a Hill, and if we ever want to see the Second Coming or even get into heaven, we had better burn the ACLU, the gays, and the abortion doctors alive in the temple in Jerusalem. The smell of burning sinners will waft toward heaven, and God will smile upon those who are faithful to Him and reward them with a better life here on Earth and in heaven. (They might burn Jews, too.)

Thanks, America. You're a real peach. The world is a safer place.