The bad news. Postsecondary education completion rates have been abysmal ,and too many students have nothing to show for their astronomical student loan debt.
The good news. There is a solution. The College Cost Reduction Act, authored by Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), includes bipartisan proposals and meaningful reforms to tackle widespread concern regarding the insurmountable cost of postsecondary education.
This morning, Chairwoman Foxx joined Morning in America on NewsNation to break down the bill.
“Much is in the[College Cost Reduction Act], but the most important changes revolve around transparency, financial aid reforms, deregulation, and accountability.…One significant change is that the bill would mandate standardized financial aid award letters.…Another transparency change would be the requirement for many colleges to offer a price guarantee to students based on the duration of the program.…One of the most important changes is that it would replace the Cost of Attendance (CoA) when determining aid eligibility with the Median Cost of College.…But the most exciting change…is the new risk-sharing requirement for colleges. … The general idea is that when a college’s former students do not repay their loans, the college would be required to pay for them—essentially reimbursing the government for the money lost on the loan. Overall, the College Cost Reduction Act would be a dramatic improvement for higher education.”—Andrew Gillen, Texas Public Policy Foundation
“The ‘College Cost Reduction Act’ provides the first substantive and comprehensive proposal in years to reform the way colleges and universities are funded and held accountable. There’s a lot to like. The bill…reduces the growing number of complex repayment programs down to two 10-year repayment programs: one based on flat payments and the other based on a student’s future earnings…removes a number of the regulations enacted by the Biden Administration that make it harder for institutions to innovate and align with workforce needs…provides a locked-in price guarantee so that students do not see prices go up while they progress through their degree. …And lastly, probably the most sorely needed provision is one that puts institutions, instead of taxpayers, on the hook for some unpaid loans.”—Michael Brickman, American Enterprise Institute
“For too long, federal higher education policy has operated under the unspoken assumption that college always pays off, and therefore there is little need for guardrails oraccountability.…The risk-sharing and performance bonus provisions of the College Cost Reduction Act will likely save taxpayers $1.9 billion per year by redistributing federal resources between institutions.… Institutions will face smaller penalties and enjoy larger bonuses if they take steps to serve students better: namely, lowering tuition levels and student debt, raising completion rates, enrolling more low-income students, and improving the economic outcomes of their degree programs.”—Preston Cooper, FREOPP
“The College Cost Reduction Act represents the largest serious and comprehensive higher education reform package in decades and, in theory, has plenty of bipartisan appeal.…The Act would create a standardized financial aid offer form for university use, so that students can compare apples to apples.…The package would also…replace borrowing caps with flexible loan limits which adjust based on the median cost of college for a given program[and]streamlines federal loan repayment programs, and prevents the Secretary of Education from creating new repayment programs or changing existing programs such that they impose a larger fiscal burden on taxpayers.…Lastly, The College Cost Reduction Act focuses on accountability and student success…it would have colleges paying the price when their graduates fail to earn enough to repay their debts to taxpayers. This would put an end to the gravy train that has allowed colleges and universities to somehow escape blame for all that is currently ailing higher education finance.”—Beth Akers, American Enterprise Institute
