A Few Thoughts on Truth in Tuition

A few months ago a press release showed up in the inbox touting this legislation:

The Truth in Tuition amendment would give colleges and universities two options on how to better inform students about costs as well as incentives for providing more information upfront for students and families. The first option would be for schools to give incoming freshmen a multi-year tuition and fee schedule. Under this option, tuition for all four years would be given to students ahead of time and those rates would be binding, unless the college or university was to apply for a waiver from the Secretary of Education. The other option for schools would be to give students a single-year tuition and fee schedule as well as the average deviation in tuition between previous years. Under this option schools would have to provide students with an individual and customized look at what tuition and fees – including financial aid – they would face during their time in that school.

The amendment was sponsored by Rep. Patrick Murphy and regular readers will know that generally I write positively about Pennsylvania's 8th district congressman. But this gave me pause. On the surface it sounds like great legislation. A clear idea of what a college education will cost, what could be better?

But here is where I ran into trouble. Colleges often raise tuition because state and federal aid for education has dropped. If a state had a drastic budget situation and slashed education funding, what recourse would a state supported college or university have? Apply for a waiver? It sounded good but I still had questions. Colleges in trouble financially tend to raid the library budget, hire more part-time faculty instead of filling full-time lines, and cut back on maintenance and cleaning.

This week I finally got around to looking at the bill being amended, HR 4137, which was co-sponsored by Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania's 4th district. One thing that It does have a provision encouraging state's to maintain financial support of higher education (I didn't see any such provision for the federal government). [Truth in advertising: I didn't read the actual bill but a summary; it was plenty long enough and that was just skimming sections):

(Sec. 108) Requires states to maintain or increase their funding of non-capital and indirect research and development costs at public IHEs [Institution of Higher Education] and their funding of financial aid at private IHEs or become ineligible for this Act's new grants to expand college access and increase college persistence under the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership program. Allows the Secretary to waive such requirement for states facing exceptional circumstances.

Authorizes the Secretary to identify and disseminate IHE cost containment strategies, recognize IHEs that are containing costs effectively, and work with other IHEs to implement such strategies.

In the remarks of Murphy's co-sponsor Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) she clearly states the opportunities for exceptions:

It's not binding on the schools. It provides the students, though, as I say, with an idea. And there is a provision in there that if the school has some kind of an economic hardship, they can get a waiver from the Secretary of Education. This could include a cut in Federal or State funding, or any number of other economic issues that might disrupt the school's budget.

On further reviewing the history of the bill I found two amendments put forth by Pennsylvania's 7th district congressman, Rep. Joe Sestak. Amendment 940 included physical therapists in the list of occupations qualified for student loan forgiveness. Amendment 941 "Amendment amends the articulation agreement strategies that may be employed by states and institutions of higher education to include management systems regarding course equivalency, transfer of credit, and articulation." Both of those sound reasonable.

After reviewing the bill summary and some of the amendments it looks to me like this is a worthwhile bill, though I would prefer schools have greater leeway when the state of federal government decides to take a hatchet to their budget.