Better Late Than Never: Congress Addresses the College Affordability Crisis

These are exciting times for America's students. After years of neglecting the college (un)affordability crisis, Congress is making the issue a priority.

The House Education and Labor Committee unanimously backed a five-year reauthorization of the Higher Education Act Thursday when it approved the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (H.R. 4137) by a margin of 44 to 0. The bill, which boosts student aid and helps families compare tuition costs at different colleges, comes less than two months after Congress passed legislation cutting subsidies to lenders and shifting the money to aid for students, increasing grants for low-income students and cutting interest rates on federal student loans.

Yesterday's bill, which will likely go the full House after Thanksgiving and contains similar provisions as the Senate's version which passed by 95-0 in July, would raise the maximum Pell grant for low-income students to $9,000 per year, from $5,800, and would allow the grants to be used year-round. The measure also sets high spending ceilings for many college programs, creates some important new ones and simplifies the student aid application and delivery process. These are all tasks that are long overdue and which college officials overwhelmingly support.

But the bill has a number of provisions that college officials are not so fond of. For example, the legislation calls for the creation of a "higher education price index" that would allow parents and students to compare tuition increases over time at various colleges and universities. Schools that significantly raise tuition would be placed on a government "watch list."

University lobbyists call this an unnecessary and potentially harmful federal intrusion into higher education. Richard Doherty of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Massachussets insists, "The notion that there are efficiencies that colleges are not trying to pursue currently is just a fallacy." This assertion seems hard to defend as universities spend millions upon millions of dollars on state-of-the-art athletic facilities and dining halls to climb the rankings and impress helicopter parents. Worse still, the money that universities reserve for financial aid to defray the burden of soaring tuition often does not end up in the hands of the students who need it most as colleges dish out merit aid to woo wealthy applicants with high SAT scores and potential donor parents. For-profit schools have tried out cost-cutting methods like teaching full courses of study online and renting out university buildings to the community, but the savings from such practices go to boosting the bottom line. Until independent colleges test these and other models, Congress should continue to pressure them to limit the skyrocketing price of tuition.

The College Opportunity and Affordability Act is far from perfect, but it takes steps in the right direction by acknowledging the reality that making college affordable requires action at the federal level (e.g. the Pell grant increase and interest rate reduction) the state level (e.g. the punishment for state governments that cut their higher education budgets) and most importantly the private sector (e.g. the additional grant money to colleges that restrain their tuition growth and the ban on student loan lenders from giving schools financial aid funds or any other perks to get on a "preferred lender" list). The work is far from over, but nine years after the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in 1998, it seems like Congress is finally making progress toward making college more affordable.

Comments

[ljsfolly]

Reform at the level of the actual universities and finding out just what is driving the higher cost of the student receiving the education. It's like the health issues costing so much more butat least with health you know some of the higher cost is the new medical treatments and test available to a point. Is the universities buying and trying new things to drive up the costs?

[AmandaM]

I'm 26 years old and I had $60,000 in student loan debts when I graduated from college. But it was worth it. I had a great college experience and the fact that I had to earn it makes it that much more special to me. What I don't understand is why so many complain that college is too expensive or unattainable as if it's a required step in modern life.

Yes, there are many jobs that absolutely need a college education to advance. But there are also many demanding fields where on-the-job training, technical courses, and certificates make much more sense. An administrative assistant doesn't need an MBA - s/he needs to know how to work a computer and answer phones. An electrician does not require knowledge of Shakespeare's sonnets or the history of Uruguay to do his job. And we shouldn't expect the government to help everyone pay for four years of unnecessary education.

Also, there are literally thousands of scholarships and grants available for those students who are actively pursuing higher education. I got $200 from a local optometrist each year for wearing glasses and $300 a year from the local home builders. All I had to do was write a quick essay. I also had a $10,000 a year scholarship for being a good student in Community College. That's another option - going to Community College for the first 2 years and transferring to a four-year school saved me about $40,000 in tuition. Unless you're pre-med or pre-law, the courses everyone takes in their freshmen and sophomore year are pretty much the same at any school. Why spend $15,000 - $40,000 a year when you can spend $3,000 - $5,000 for the same classes?

If you really want to go to college, you have to get a little creative. But it's not an unreachable goal if you're willing to work hard and be practical about it. There are some amazing schools out there that are also affordable. Paying for college really isn't that hard as long as you're smart about it.

[TUCANOFULANO]

Deport Illegal Aliens, eliminate special pricing for "ethnic groups", and there'll be plenty of classroom space at affordable prices for American students.

[drblack]

They did nothing......the Dems had a chance to stop the terrible and Unjust law which prevents those with drug arrests from getting college aid.
Simply being in the same car with someone who has drugs (and you are unaware of it) can get you busted.
Of course all sane and reasonable people know that Ending drug prohibition would create a safer and less violent world. besides freeing up at least a trillion dollars a year for important things.
Education costs are insane.

[Bladernr1001]

Zack,

You need to take econ 101. The more government subsidizes college costs the faster the costs will rise. It is simple supply and demand. Your little socialist approach to this problem is doomed to failure.

[Curedlib]

Why do I get the feeling that the problem with the cost of education is Government intervention? Maybe because I'm a conservative and maybe because I'm right!

[dgscol]

They always talk about making money available - but never about reforming the universities, that are often cesspools of Anti-American thinking, that favor the wealthy and the connected (cheating permitted on exams), and have administrations that protect faculty, whatever they do and whoever they are.

Our future depends on these societal gateways, and the universties have abnegated their responsibility in this - the faculty hardly seeming to know what country they are in.

[darker]

Education LOAN SHARKS are not regulated. They're part of the Bush-Cheney NANNY STATE FOR THE RICH at the expense of middle America and it students.

Going to college is unaffordable. Getting loans to do that is signing on to a financial BALL & CHAIN that turns college graduates into paupers and debtors, and cancels out any value of education in their future.

To correct this, Congress needs to fix the student loan mess RETROACTIVE to 20 years ago!

[TheOtherMaven]

I don't suppose they're going to do anything whatsoever to make it one iota easier to repay existing student loans. Talk about overdue - and direly needed!

[suki21693]

"These are exciting times for America's students."

Why exactly is that? Because they can watch other people reap the benefits of this bill after they graduate? If this bill passes it will not be effective until well after many current students, who are desperately in need of assistance, have graduated.

I am really sick of propagandists stirring up students to help get bills passed under with false promises of financial relief, and then walking away without so much as an apology when the new laws don't apply to current students, but those a couple of years down the road.

If school is unaffordable (it is) then students need pell grant increases TODAY, not two years from now.

Frankly, your assertion that "these are exciting times for America's students" is just an insult. IF "Congress is making the issue a priority" then why would this bill not go into effect for at least two years?

Congress could easily take just a fraction of the money being spent to support Blackwater in the murderous lifestyle to which they have become accustomed and immediately apply that to the growing need for increased Pell funding. Put then pell grants don't just go to political cronies.

[Woofer58]

So what happens now..??
The feds will loan more money, so doesn't that mean the prices will go up even more ? Seems everything else works that way...

I think inflation sucks and the current administration sure doesn't want to attack the problem realistically.
Perhaps they might look at encouraging colleges to cut costs rather than just supplying more loans. The money does have to get paid back, you know ?

It must be just great to be 22, a diploma in your hand and owe 50 grand in loans. What a way to start life...