Dive Summary:
- In his few sentences about higher education during Tuesday night's State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said that taxpayers cannot continue to subsidize the increasing costs of higher education, and that the government must make sure they keep costs down.
- While he didn't specifically mention accreditation in the speech, details released by the White House afterward call for Congress to either require college price and educational value to be taken into account during accreditation or to create an alternate system based on "performance and results."
- Obama also took the opportunity during the speech to push past proposals, like an $8 billion community college fund from last year's budget request and a final version of the "college scorecard" project, as well as warn of the effects sequestration will have on federal research and education programs.
From the article:
WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Tuesday night called for major changes to the criteria accreditors use to evaluate colleges, asking Congress to either require accreditors to take college prices and educational value into account or to create an alternative system based on "performance and results." Either could mark a significant shift in how the federal government judges higher education quality and eligibility for financial aid programs. ...