A tuition bill sitting quietly in Congress has the potential to devastate the University’s funding, according to a high-ranking University official.
The Affordability in Higher Education Act, introduced by Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., would threaten universities nationwide with funding cuts if they raise tuition too high and too quickly.
University Senior Vice President and Provost John Moseley said the bill dismisses reality by tying increased tuition to increased costs.
“The reason tuition is going up has nothing to do with costs going up,” Moseley said. “The problem is not increasing cost in higher education; it’s declining state support for higher education.”
Dubbed H.R. 3311, the bill would create a “College Affordability Index” based on tuition and fees charged to students over a three-year period, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. If student costs during that period exceed twice the rate of inflation, an accountability process kicks in.
First, a university in violation of the double-inflation rule would have to justify its increases with a management plan. The document would detail how the violative university intends to slow down the increases and provide a schedule for doing so.
If a university failed to keep pace with the management plan, it would have to provide the U.S. Department of Education with a comprehensive report on its spending and costs. The university’s accrediting agency would be notified, and it might have to submit to an audit conducted by the Department of Education’s inspector general.
The bill would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, which instituted many of the federal programs near and dear to college students. The proposed legislation would authorize the Department of Education to pull funding from some Higher Education Act programs, including work study and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants.
“The bill itself is ill-conceived in the extreme,” Moseley said. “This is a case of McKeon blaming the victim and not wanting to recognize the responsibility of the state for funding higher education.”
A press release from McKeon’s office said the bill “seeks to address the college cost crisis by working to increase the affordability of higher education through consumer empowerment and accountability for cost increases.”
The proposed legislation would also attempt to ease the difficulty of transferring credits between institutions and provide more publicly available documents about college costs.
The University area’s representative in Congress, Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said McKeon’s bill is a step in the wrong direction.
“Slapping price controls on colleges, penalizing students twice by increasing their tuition and reducing their financial aid is not the answer,” DeFazio said in an e-mail.
The bill has a long way to go before becoming law, however. It must first emerge from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The effort garnered strong opposition from Democrats and education lobbyists, and some Republicans expressed concern as well.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, McKeon delayed introducing the bill to address the concerns of some Republican lawmakers who worried about the bill’s effects on low-priced colleges in their districts. In response, McKeon added a section to the bill that would exempt one-fourth of the cheapest institutions of each type of school, such as community colleges, state colleges, private colleges and for-profit institutions.
Moseley was not impressed.
“I think it would result in a nationwide disaster,” he said.