As congressional Democrats debate amongst themselves how many new trillions the federal government should spend, it is becoming increasingly clear that, as my colleague Beth Akers put it, “many of the progressive dreams of the primary, including free college, [are coming] to a screeching halt.”

This is good news for those who favor a market-oriented approach to higher education reform. But in the near term, it will be up to state legislators and policymakers — not Congress or the Department of Education — to take concrete steps toward a more efficient system of higher education. To that end, AEI’s Conservative Education Reform Network recently published a report by Michael Brickman, “The missing element in education reform: State-based policies to improve postsecondary outcomes.”