At high−cost universities like Tufts, tuition is often a deciding factor in whether students attend — an issue that President Barack Obama is attempting to ameliorate. Students and faculty on the Hill, though, doubt that Obama's ideas will bring about positive change.
During a speech at the University of Michigan on Jan. 27, Obama outlined a plan to reduce the cost of higher education by linking how successfully colleges could reduce tuition with the amount of federal grant money they are given in low−interest loans.
According to an article in The New York Times, Obama's proposal would increase federal funding in the Perkins loan program from $1 billion to $8 billion, with distribution based on how well schools could lower tuition, serve low−income students and provide students with the most bang for their buck.
Obama's plan would also provide an additional $1 billion to states that check the cost of higher education and create a $55 million prize awarded to schools through a competition for developing innovative ways to boost productivity.
While the plan is appealing to young voters, university officials remain skeptical about whether it will garner congressional approval given the nation's current state of debt.
"The issue of affordability is complex and is highly specific to each individual college and university," Senior Vice President of University Relations Mary Jeka said. "Many details of the president's plan are still forthcoming … It is too soon to predict all of the specific impacts."
Obama's message carries traces of the concerns that fueled the Occupy Wall Street protests and comes in the wake of a strategy to consolidate federal student loans and reduce interest rates in order to help college graduates escape their debt.
"President Obama has made a number of proposals in his recent budget that are focused on the affordability of higher education," Jeka said. "Tufts University supports proposals that seek to increase financial aid to students and open the doors of education to students regardless of family income."
In his speech, Obama emphasized that rising tuition costs were unacceptable if the universities that raise them expect to continue to receive adequate levels of federal funding.
"You can't assume you'll just jack up tuition every single year," Obama said. "If you can't stop tuition from going up, your funding from taxpayers will go down. We should push colleges to do better; we should hold them accountable if they don't."
Obama also asked Congress to revoke a proposal that would double the interest rate on federal Stafford loans.
"In general, I am in favor of proposals that increase federal funding for need−based financial aid," Patricia Reilly, director of financial aid and co−manager of Student Financial Services, said. "In particular, I support efforts to keep the federal student loan interest rate at 3.4 percent instead of letting it double to 6.7 percent on July 1, 2012, as it is currently set to do."
Reilly pointed out that without knowing all of the details of Obama's higher education proposals, it is impossible to know exactly how they might impact Tufts students. Critics of Obama's proposals cite the fact that punishing high−cost colleges and universities by reducing or completely taking away their federal aid would affect needy students at those same institutions.
According to the College Board, for the 2011−2012 year, the average cost of tuition for private nonprofit colleges is $28,500 and the total average cost including room and board is $38,589.
Tufts University ranks among the most expensive universities in the country, with a full cost of attendance totaling $54,474 for the 2011−2012 academic year, according to the Tufts University Bursar. However, this figure does not consider financial aid.
"I think that the Tufts tuition is very high, but a lot of people make it work," sophomore Sara Makaretz said. "I think that Obama's plan has the potential to work really well, but at the same time it's true that if a college is ‘cut off' from federal financial aid funding, it would further divide the upper and lower classes by making some colleges inaccessible. I don't think that cutting schools off is a good idea, but I also am not sure about what would be a good ‘punishment' for schools that can't cut costs."
Makaretz, who qualified for a work−study job last year and has a Stafford loan, expressed concern that young voters might not take into account all of the consequences that Obama's proposal could present.
"I think that young voters will probably see ‘reducing college costs' and think it's great but may not fully understand the implications of the program," she said.
While critics predict that Obama's plan will never make it through the Republican−controlled House of Representatives, it does raise awareness of the high price that young Americans are paying for a college degree.
"At Tufts, we will continue to make every effort to manage tuition increases and grow our financial aid resources so as to minimize the impacts on our students and their families," Jeka said. "We are also committed to spending our resources wisely to attract world−class faculty and students while maintaining state−of−the−art facilities that will support our core mission of teaching and research across our three campuses."
