Life
Obama to focus on rising tuition costs
Obama’s proposal also includes the creation of new tools to allow students to determine which colleges and universities have the best value.
His plan will likely be a tough sell in Congress, which must approve nearly all aspects of it except the creation of the new tools.
The Obama administration already has taken a series of steps to expand the availability of grants and loans and to make loans easier to pay back, and Obama spelled out Tuesday other proposals to make college more affordable, such as extending a tuition tax break and asking Congress to keep loan interest rates from doubling on July.
His administration has also targeted career college programs, primarily at for-profit institutions, with high loan default rates among graduates over multiple years by taking away their ability to participate in such programs.
But until now, it has done little to turn its attention to the rising cost of tuition at traditional colleges and universities.
The average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges last fall rose 8.3 percent and with room and board now exceed US$17,000 a year, according to the College Board. Rising tuition costs have been blamed on a variety of factors, including a decline in state dollars, an over-reliance on federal student loan dollars and competition for the best facilities and professors.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former education secretary, said the autonomy of U.S. higher education is what makes it the best in the world, and he’s questioned whether Obama can enforce any plan that shifts federal aid away from colleges and universities without hurting students.
“It’s hard to do without hurting students, and it’s not appropriate to do,” Alexander said. “The federal government has no business doing this.”
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
