Obama Announces Plans To Reduce Cost of College Tuition

Obama Looks to Shrink College Tuition Bills (Time)

President Barack Obama announced a wide-ranging plan to bring down the cost of a college education Thursday, including rating colleges on the bang they provide for students’ bucks and tying financial aid rewards to those ratings.

Seeking to “fundamentally rethink and reshape the higher education system,” as White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, Obama embarked on a two-day bus tour Thursday to schools across upstate New York and Pennsylvania. While Washington spent much of the summer focused on student loans, Obama is attacking the root of the problem — the skyrocketing price tag for college tuition. Average tuition at public, four-year colleges has more than tripled over the last 30 years, the White House said. The average student today will graduate with more than $26,000 in debt.

“Just tinkering around the edges won’t be enough,” Obama said in an email to supporters this week, with college students across the country returning to campus. “We’ve got to shake up the current system.”

“We’ve got a crisis in term of college affordability and student debt,” he added Thursday at the University at Buffalo.