It?s just the first step, but it?s price controls all right. The House of Representatives just passed a higher education bill sprinkled with bureaucratic punishments and irritants designed to force universities to keep tuition down. A rundown of the bill is here.
Raise your tuition too much (i.e., you?re in the top 5 per cent)? You have to report to the education secretary on why you did it and create a ?quality efficiency task force? so you can do better next year. All schools have to tell the Department of Education each year how they have used their endowments to reduce tuition. And they have to tell students what their tuition charges will be for the next few years.
Universities aren?t the only ones being dictated to. Among other things, the bill authorizes the Department of Education to hold back federal funds to punish state governments that reduce college appropriations.
George Miller (D-California), praised himself and his colleagues for ?reining in skyrocketing tuition prices.?
