Looking at tuition increases nationwide, including a 18 percent increase at UW-Madison, a California legislator has newly revised his plan to penalize colleges for substantially raising tuition, which would prevent those colleges from receiving certain forms of federal aid.
U.S. Rep. Howard McKeon's, R-Calif., original proposal would have denied all forms of student aid to colleges that failed to comply. However, strong criticism led him to amend the proposal so Stafford Loans and Pell Grants would still be available to students at affected colleges.
McKeon introduced the plan, called the Affordability in Higher Education Act, in March as part of a push to make college more affordable for low- and middle-income families.
\Lack of financial resources continues to prevent millions of highly qualified students each year from attending college,"" he said.
One provision in his plan would require colleges to release their College Affordability Index, a function of the institution's percentage tuition increases. If a college increased tuition by twice the inflation rate for two consecutive years, it would have to provide an explanation of factors behind the cost increase, as well as plans to quell future fee raises.
""It would affect programs under the Higher Education act-[just] the institutional aid, it wouldn't be the student aid,"" said Vartan Dihanian, McKeon's press secretary.
Other representatives have lambasted McKeon's proposal for relying on percentage increases as a gauge, saying it would disproportionately affect small schools. For example, at a low-cost institution, even a small dollar increase would translate into a large percentage of the tuition cost. Dihanian said McKeon will address that concern in McKeon's bill.
However, Jacob Stampen, a UW-Madison professor of educational administration, said McKeon's proposal is an oversimplified solution to a complex problem.
""The thing wrong with an idea like that is [he] single[s] out one solution,"" Stampen said. ""What he's assuming is people are raising tuition because they want to.""
He noted that many public universities, including UW-Madison, face fee increases due to state budget cuts-a factor the proposal overlooks. Jeff Pertl, president of the United Council of University of Wisconsin Students, made similar remarks.
""The state legislature is going to cut the hell out of the university so the university has to raise tuition,"" he said. ""It's just a domino effect of no money.""
Pertl also rejected McKeon's assertion that universities need to be more financially accountable to avoid tuition increases. He said the increase in tuition covers years of budget cuts to state institutions.
""It's not like we're just blowing money out the window,"" he said.
