WASHINGTON, D.C. – The White House was purposefully vague on the college affordability plan that it announced last week because the administration wants the higher education community to help shape the plan, a White House official told a group of higher education leaders meeting in Washington on Tuesday.
“The reason it’s not more detailed is because the more we thought about it, it would be better to outline what the principles are, then engage in a dialogue with the entire higher education community, experts, students and families, and then talk about what would be the right way to relay these principles,” said Zakiya Smith, senior advisor for education at the White House Domestic Policy Council, at the annual meeting of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
“We don’t have all the details and we didn’t come out with a bill that has very specific details laid down from beginning to end,” Smith said. “We thought the best thing to do would be to lay out a blueprint, principles, and get feedback on how to make (those principles) into something more concrete.”
Smith’s remarks came just one week after President Obama announced in his State of the Union address a plan to tie some federal aid to colleges’ and universities’ ability to keep down tuition.
