<p>I would not want to be any part of anything that Obama says or does having to do with finances period. He has had all of the rope needed to hang himself and has proven that he’s not competent. He is also not honest enough. We are not all the same financially. That’s life. Keep him out of it! I don’t think that we need college funding to end up like Obama Care.</p>
<p>College rating are mostly BS, especially because for most schools, the quality of education really depends on the student’s major, and the quality of their experience really depends on the student.</p>
I think it may be a good idea, but not for the government. If the fed or states leave no child behind, we get more administrators trying to meet the criteria to be on the list. More government bloat asministering the list. And if you tie aid to the list ranking, you are doubling down. Aid and all the loans are one of the top factors in the tuition bubble. If the top of the list schools get more aid, they can charge more. As long as their grads find work and don’t have tons of debt, they can still look good.
Maybe instead the Dept. Of Ed should hire a firm to make a truly interactive website where you can put in parameters and out pops the best choices. And I mean any parameters. Most tools like this are limited in inputs. Or maybe one of you up and coming CS students will start one!!
So if I put in that I only want to see schools where the median act is 30-34 that give at least 10k merit aid to at least 30% of students…or compare 15 specific parameters between Harvard and Alabama. It’s easier to research and choose a car than a college these days…Of course there will always be the people who buy a Mercedes no matter what, but it would help to show comparison shopping in colleges!
Several points that I think anyone, regardless of their political bent, should think about.
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Federal Government Support for Higher Education (financial aid, tax breaks, direct support to institutions) comes to about $7500 / student (state/local government support is roughly about the same.) People that want the government to “keep out of Higher Ed” are the equivalent of 2008 era Tea Party supporters waving signs saying “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The government is already highly involved in higher education, and the idea that perhaps we ought to look at whether that money is being well spent should not be controversial.
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The existing financial aid regime is most definitely a case of “subsidy capture” and is helping to fuel some of the rise in costs. Clearly this is counter to the whole goal of the programs, and it is everyone’s interest to determine if we are getting value for our tax dollars.
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Many peer countries use much higher direct government support to make higher education more accessible to their kids. No, it is not “free” - it is funded by tax dollars. No, it is not on average lower quality than ours. Sure, our flagship elite schools are well regarded world-wide, but most of that advantage is in graduate programs and research, not undergraduate. Our existing system is not the only way, nor is it necessarily the best way.
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For-profit education in this country is a scandal. For the most part, the biggest players in this sector are engaged in out and fraud, not just on the kids in these programs, but on the taxpayers. The 2006 changes in regulation have proved to be a complete dis
Whoops, I cut off my last point there.
The gist of it is that the proposed rating system is part of the wider effort on the part of this administration to crack down on the worst offenders in the for-profit sector. It is not some sort of attempt to have the Federal government start micro-managing the entire sector. I honestly can’t see why anyone can be opposed to going after the bad actors in that part of the industry, regardless of what your political inclinations are.