Students could receive a little help against rising tuition costs as Congress passed a bill Thursday that could hold states and universities accountable for the rapidly increasing costs.
The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 marks widespread measures that would limit tuition increases, expand student lending and make textbook purchasing more transparent.
Varying versions of the bill have passed in both the Senate and the House of Representatives during the last five years. On Tuesday, a negotiating committee from both sides of Congress approved a bill that was sent to the floor of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Thursday.
The House passed the conference report 380-49. The Senate was expected to vote on the bill Thursday night, and release the results of the vote Friday morning.
“Nowhere more than in Michigan has the need for education beyond high school become more crucial for the future of our hardworking men and women and their families,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, in an e-mail statement.
Most of the highlights of the bill are made to keep the cost of attending college down, focusing on limiting tuition hikes and increasing federal aid for students.
There is an amendment to the bill that would withhold grant funds from states to increase funding to higher education at least as much as it has over the past five years.
Universities also will be held accountable for rising tuition costs. The secretary of education will publish annual lists of the institutions with the highest and lowest increases in tuition and fees. Schools on those lists will be required to report the factors that they took to hold down costs.
Kent Cassella, MSU’s director of media relations, said he can’t predict how the bill will affect MSU.
“The bill does establish some reporting requirements on institutions,” Cassella said. “Until we have the time to look at those in depth, I can’t speculate on the workload or time load it will require to meet them.”
Family community services senior Florine Wilson said finding a way to keep tuition down is important.
“It’s making it harder for my parents to provide for me as far as financially,” Wilson said. “They want to because they didn’t go to college. I’m the first generation to go to college.”
The bill also will address textbook costs, Cassella said. Publishers will have to sell textbooks unbundled and provide more advanced information on textbook prices.
However, not all measures of the bill will affect MSU, Cassella said.
Some of the recommendations that have already been implemented are a tuition and fees calculator, a user-friendly Web site and full disclosure of the university’s credit transferring policy, Cassella said.
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