Obama Plan to Tie Student Aid to College Ratings Draws Mixed Reviews

By Kelly Field. President Obama continues his three-campus "college cost" bus tour on Friday, promoting his plans to make college more affordable through a mix of carrots and sticks. The heart of the proposals is a controversial plan to rate colleges based on measures of access, affordability, and student outcomes, and to allocate aid based on those ratings. Under the plan, students attending higher-rated institutions could obtain larger Pell Grants and more-affordable loans. The Obama administration and its supporters say the ratings would empower consumers with fresh information and would pressure colleges to keep costs down. They describe a "datapalooza," in which prospective students would be able to compare institutions on measures such as debt levels, graduation and transfer rates, and graduates' earnings. More...