Yesterday we posted information from Higher Ed Watch’s blog about the biggest hits in higher education of the Obama Administration. Today, we look at the five biggest misses of this administration. Since Education Department secretary Arne Duncan has suggested that he plans to stay in his position and keep the Education Department on the same course as it has been for the past four years (see our blog post about this here: https://coreeducationllc.com/blog2/arne-duncan-charts-course-for-next-four-years/), the track record of the last four years will be of particular use as we look forward to the next years of federal policy.
Following are the biggest misses, as seen by the New America Foundation:
1. Fighting to Keep the 3.4% Interest Rate: Eager to woo the youth vote and tap into America’s anxiety about student debt, the Obama administration launched an all-out “don’t double my rate” PR campaign earlier this year aimed at stopping Congress from allowing the temporary 3.4 percent fixed interest rate on federally-subsidized Stafford loans to revert to 6.8 percent. With the Pell Grant program facing a multi-billion dollar funding cliff, it’s a shame that the administration spent so much political and financial capital on a one-year gimmick that provided neither meaningful relief to financially-distressed borrowers in the short term nor to the Pell Grant program over the long haul.
2. Sacrificing Non-Traditional Students in the Pell Grant Budget-Cutting Game: While the Obama administration admirably fought to increase and then maintain the maximum Pell Grant, it also agreed to reduce the program’s budget by making eligibility changes that disproportionately affected non-traditional, working, adult students. The administration has repeatedly said that community college students and adult students are critical to meeting the President’s 2020 completion goals, so it was disappointing to see the administration and Congress try to balance the Pell Grant program’s budget on the backs of these students (while they found the political will to spend $6 billion on a one-year student loan interest rate freeze that won’t provide meaningful relief to borrowers).
3. Caving on Gainful Employment: While the Obama administration deserves much credit for its effort to rein in for-profit colleges, it also deserves to be blasted for caving in to political pressure by taking the teeth out of its final Gainful Employment rules. Responding to a massive lobbying campaign from the for-profit higher education industry, the administration watered down its proposed rules to such an extent that these regulations – which were meant to shut down programs that load students up with unmanageable levels of debt but provide inadequate training – make even the most poorly-performing for-profit college companies look pretty good.
4. Not Holding Traditional Colleges Accountable for Affordability and Outcomes: The Obama administration has made it easier for students to pay for college on the front end (Pell increases and FAFSA simplification) and repay their loans on the back end (Income-Based Repayment). What it hasn’t done is used its power to hold colleges accountable for reigning in college costs or improving student outcomes. President Obama caught our attention when he said he was putting colleges “on notice” in his State of the Union address, but his pledge to tie campus-based financial aid to whether colleges provide a “good value” has not materialized. Nor has the $1 billion Race to the Top for College Affordability and Completion. Nor has mandatory adoption of the financial aid shopping sheet or college scorecard.
5. Not Doing Enough to Reform the Back End of the Student Loan Program: While the Obama administration achieved its most significant higher education victory when it overhauled the front-end of the federal student loan system, it has not done nearly enough to fix the back end of the program – leaving more and more borrowers at the mercy of the Education Department’s all-too-often predatory student loan collection contractors. While administration officials have recently taken some limited steps to address the worst abuses, they have largely left the current system and its many dysfunctions in place.
For more, please see: http://higheredwatch.newamerica.net/blogposts/2012/president_obama_s_biggest_higher_ed_misses-73571
