Overview
American colleges and universities play a pivotal role in training
the nation’s citizens, leaders, innovators, public servants and
educators. In the past decade, government support for higher education
has declined; as a result, tuition and fees have increased. Grants have
failed to keep pace. As costs continue to swell, students are taking on
more and more debt to pay for their degrees.
We support
access to higher education through increased need-based financial aid
and streamlined federal student aid programs. We should increase the
affordability of a college education by controlling the rise in student
debt, by making loans more affordable and by cutting special-interest
subsidies in the student loan programs.
Making
Education More Affordable
In
addition to tuition and room and board, students spend an average of
$900 a year on course materials. Prices keep going up faster than
inflation. The main
problem is that in the textbook market the person who chooses the
textbook (faculty) does not actually buy the textbook; students and
their families do. Price signals also fail to control prices in the
textbook market as publishers withhold
pricing information from faculty, bundle textbooks with expensive but
unnecessary workbooks and CD-Roms, and undermine the used book market
by constantly releasing new editions.
