New federal task force to address issues in higher education

U.S. Senators announced the creation of a task force to that will attempt to address issues facing institutions of higher education on Monday, but Boston University students said they felt the initiative might prove ineffective despite the issues facing colleges and universities today.

The Task Force on Government Regulation and Higher Education will review federal regulations applied to college and university programs across the nation and make recommendations to remove inefficient bureaucratic barriers, according to a Monday press release.

Akram Habibi, a College of Engineering sophomore, said officials of the task force would not be able to understand legitimate student issues.

“They’re not in the atmosphere that kids are in,” Habibi said. “Having somebody who’s not experienced in it [student life] trying to help out with it doesn’t always work, so I don’t think they’d be able to help that much.”

However, Habibi said he hoped the task force would be able to alleviate tuition costs.

“It [college tuition] is pretty expensive, especially at schools like BU,” Habibi said. “It would be great if they could help out with that. That would obviously help out with accessibility too, because a lot of kids just can’t afford it [tuition] and can’t get the help from their parents.”

Rachel Prabhu, a junior in SAR, said she felt the task force could be effective in encouraging institutions of higher education to provide more resources for students.

“Higher education organizations or colleges make themselves out to be really helpful and that the resources within the college are really accessible,” Prabhu said. “But actually, once the student is in the college, it’s very hard for a student to actually get help.”

“The Senate itself can’t really do anything personally to monitor teachers other than coming up with this [task force] assessment,” said Alexandra Mercer, a College of Arts and Sciences junior. “The issues that I find troubling in colleges and universities are more frivolous than those that senate needs to focus on.”

School of Education Dean Hardin Coleman, said in an email he hopes the task force will be effective in decreasing regulation of higher education institutions.

“It would be great if this commission did the hard work of developing useful accountability metrics for university and colleges that were publically available,” Coleman said. “… Then we can let the market forces drive innovation and aspirations for excellence.”

Senate education committee Ranking Member Senator Lamar Alexander  said in the release the task force will aim to remove some of the red tape surrounding federal regulation of college and university programs.

“Let’s face it: the federal government has become one of the greatest obstacles to innovation in higher education,” Alexander said in the release. “The stack of federal regulations on colleges and universities today is not the result of evil doers, it is simply the piling up of well-intentioned laws and regulations without anyone spending an equal amount of time weeding the garden first.”

The task force will be co-chaired by Nicholas Zeppos, chancellor of Vanderbilt University, and William Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, the release stated. The committee will also include 14 college and university presidents and experts in higher education and will be assisted by The American Council on Education.

Alix Rubio, a sophomore in Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, also said high tuition costs needed to be combatted by the committee.

“Student debt keeps on increasing and increasing,” Rubio said. “Students are racking up so much debt that they’re not even able to pay it back. My roommate, she’s paying for college on her own. She’s taking students loans, federal loans, all that. Currently, I think she is $50,000 in debt right now, and we’re only sophomores, so it’s really rough for her.”