WASHINGTON – If students and parents had better information about how much a college graduate from a given program is likely to earn after graduation, it would enable them to make better decisions about which college to choose.
That was the notion that two U.S. senators and several panelists advanced Wednesday at a forum titled “Holding Higher Education Accountable.”
Much of the conversation dealt with the anticipated benefits of the proposed “Student Right to Know Before You Go Act,” introduced earlier this year by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. and co-sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both of whom spoke briefly at the event.
“I think federal education policy is at a fork in the road right now,” Wyden said at the event, hosted at the American Enterprise Institute and co-sponsored by the New America Foundation.
“Historically, (federal education policy) has been about access … I want to keep that focus,” Wyden said, expressing his support for Pell Grants, Stafford loans and the like.
” I think we ought to go, however, to access plus value, and make it possible for students and parents to make decisions so they can bring the most value out of the scarce resources they have for education,” Wyden said.
Rubio voiced similar concerns, both from a consumer standpoint — at one point he noted how shoppers can read the content on a box of cookies before they decide to eat them — as well as from the standpoint of being a steward of federal tax dollars.
