Students and parents burdened by the financial costs of college education may soon have reason to celebrate, thanks to the College Affordability and Opportunity Act, passed by the House of Representatives Feb. 7.
While providing more conventional reforms such as broadening eligibility requirements and increasing the maximum amount of federal loans, the act has also been touted for its aim to lower the financial costs of higher education for a variety of economic groups. Passed by a vote of 354-58, the act is the House’s revised and extended version of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and will now move to a compromise committee. Yet there remains skepticism of how effective these modifications will be.
Included in the act is a “College Consumer’s Bill of Rights,” a list that is largely aimed at providing loan applicants and recipients with a better understanding of their entitlements throughout the process. But the bill also includes requirements aimed at increasing accountability on the part of loan providers, such as “The Right to know that your student financial aid office does not accept or share revenues from lending companies.”
Wade Nacinovich, the counselor associate at the State University of New York Fashion Institute of Technology’s financial aid office, expressed some doubts that the reforms will produce truly innovative results.
“Students who are not receiving financial aid perhaps will benefit from lower costs, if colleges and universities become more systematically accountable for what they charge students. But unless colleges and universities drastically reduce, rather than merely reform future increases, many students are still going to graduate with an enormous amount of debt,” he said.
The act is also unique in its strategy to reduce textbook costs. It requires publishing companies to provide teachers with full textbook pricing information, and it requests that teachers in turn give advanced notice of book selection for courses.
These reforms will be able to help every student regardless of situation, Fran Clark, program coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said, by allowing faculty to compare prices when assigning books and giving students more time to “shop around for cheap books.”
“This legislation creates transparency measures that, no matter how sensitive individuals are to those prices, will lower the costs for all students,” Clark said.
Pauline Brown, BC ’11, expressed excitement with the textbook legislation, arguing that the cost of books should be included in tuition because they represent such a large financial burden. “Although it seems like a fair amount of people get financial aid, I don’t know how they can go through college with a limited resource of money facing so many other costs, and textbooks are a huge part of that. I know girls who have to go to the library all the time because they can’t afford books, and that is a huge hindrance.”
Shoaib Harris, GS, described what he characterized as the monopoly publishers hold over students. “Publishers know that there is an inelastic demand from students, so they raise their prices and make it brutal for us,” he said.
But Harris said there are still many unaddressed problems with the financial aid system, especially at Columbia.
“Harvard and Princeton undergrads hardly have to pay anything. Here at Columbia, it’s a struggle to get aid. Far too many students are still graduating with a huge amount of debt,” he said. Nacinovich also noted the absence of reform aimed at loan debt, a problem he feels should be primary in any financial aid legislation.
“I don’t think it means a significant decrease in costs for at least middle-class students who will not be eligible for federal grants and still will have to borrow massive sums of money to pay for college. The legislation doesn’t consider that graduates with a huge loan debt are probably less likely to choose a career in public service, unless they’re affluent and get some kind of monthly parental stipend,” he said.