Congress wants to blow the whistle on colleges that raise tuition sharply, while helping students pay less for textbooks and making Pell grants available year-round part of a wide-ranging bill designed to address concerns about rising college costs.
Under the legislation, students could get earlier warning about which textbooks they’ll need for class, giving them more time to shop around, while professors would see more information on prices when they’re choosing which books to assign.
Colleges that impose severe tuition increases, meanwhile, could be shamed on a government watch list.
The sprawling Higher Education Act that the House is considering Thursday contains mostly small and midsize steps aimed at addressing college costs. Lawmakers refrained from bigger steps like price controls, instead hoping more transparency will lead to lower prices.
Will it do much good? Depends on whom you ask.
Experts say students probably will benefit more overall from the steps Congress took last year cutting interest rates on student loans, raising Pell Grants for low-income students and redirecting billions of dollars from lender subsidies to programs targeting students more directly.
Still, when lawmakers finally got around to reauthorizing the main federal law overseeing higher education it was first due for renewal in 2003 they seemed determined to go beyond simply boosting student aid dollars. Among a range of measures affecting everything from training teachers and nurses to fire safety, the bill includes rewards for colleges that keep prices down.
