Roundup: News You Need to Know, Thurs., Nov. 30

Student Lenders Discuss Democratic Proposals at Conference

Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-CA) promised student lenders at the Consumer Bankers Association Student Lending Conference yesterday that he will fight for their participation as the new Congress looks to restructure federal student loan policy. McKeon criticized Democrats plans to cut student loan interest rates in half, questioning where Congress is going to find the money to pay for the cut and the propriety of a cut. “Why not cut car loans interest rates in half?” McKeon, the ranking Congressional Republican on the House Education Committee, believes that the best road to increasing college affordability is curbing tuition growth. At the conference, student lenders discussed their anxieties about the Democratic takeover, particularly a bipartisan plan to reward colleges with increased financial aid if they use the most taxpayer-efficient student loan program.

Spellings Pushing Higher Ed Commission Accreditation Recommendations

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings met with accreditors yesterday to discuss the implementation of her Commission on the Future of Higher Educations recommendation for accreditation reform. Discussions at the meeting centered on comparable measures of student outcomes across institutions that can be used for consumer decision-making. A number of participants warned against use of standardized assessments to measure student learning. Spellings said that she was interested in several participants idea of a uniform “template” that accreditation bodies could use to report information about colleges inputs and outputs to the public. She has several options to bring about changes to the current accreditation system, including using the Department of Educations upcoming rule-making session to change the regulations that govern accreditors.