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A town hall was hosted recently on college affordability by Arne Duncan, our Secretary of Education and Joe Biden. Groups of students received them and some of them posed significant questions.
Biden said that rise in cost of college tuition far exceeds inflation and there is no way we can undo what happened in the last twenty years, especially in the midst of this recession.

Sadly, many students are forever in danger of having to stop their education abruptly due to financial constraints. He said the central part of the administration is to address the middle class’s plight.

Center for Education Policy president Jack Jennings was not very optimistic about bringing about any substantial changes. As most of the money goes through students, federal administration cannot put any conditions. This middle class political issue must be addressed at any cost by the administration that does not have any leverage on the moneys, says Jennings.

A high profile lobbyist and American Council on Education senior vice president Terry Hartle said that making certain institutions ineligible and limiting choice of students is the only way to deal with tuition increases.

He said that plans pertaining to student productivity and affordability have been dealt with in a cagey manner by the government which has done nothing more than tweaking student loan policy. We have to wait to see what is in store for students in Duncan’s 2012 budget proposals.

According to sources, these budget proposals will be on similar lines as that of K-12 education. Incentives will be offered for reforms through the Race to the Top program. Based on improved student graduation rates, preparedness and innovative cost cutting methods, states will compete for $123 million funds offered through the “First in the World” competition. This will be a part of the budget proposal.

Another proposal will be the $1.25 billion award for states that show narrow achievement gaps, set graduation goals and offer funding based on performance through the College Completion Incentive Grant.

Biden said that proposals have been put forth in the upcoming budget that will offer incentives to universities and states to keep under control escalating costs. There are many differences between what the government could achieve through these methods in K-12 and their efforts to repeat the same thing with higher education.

It was easy to pass the Race to the Top stimulus in Congress due to the good will associated with the new president’s inauguration. Now, President Obama has already completed two years in office and in its partisanship, Congress is often gridlocked.

Jennings says that they have zero chances of getting more money now. Due to the potential political battles, Congress is unable to do anything and often freezes up due to the fast approaching election.

National Center for Public Policy & Higher Education president Patrick Callan said that stimulus package pertaining to higher education was simply doled out even when reform was not in the cards.

Acknowledging this, Biden said that we can bring the case to the public. With the cooperation of the Congress, we can try to stay within inflation by leveraging costs.