The Education Department is controlled by advisers who have insufficient regard for the liberal arts and instead are intent on judging colleges largely by their ability to provide economically measurable talent for industry, a recently departed top official told "The Chronicle." Diane Auer Jones, who resigned in May as assistant secretary for postsecondary education, said in an interview that her departure was driven in large part by her repeated inability to soften the department's treatment of colleges through the accreditation process. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings agrees that colleges should determine their own missions and be judged by them, Jones said. "But others in the department really had the mind-set of bright-line standards and tests, content-based tests" as gauges of how well colleges were performing, and they were repeatedly able to translate those beliefs into policy decisions, she said. Jones acknowledged that her departure also reflected the intensity of the Education Department's internal and external battles to force colleges to do a better job of proving the value they provide to their students and the taxpayers who finance their operations.