Obama plan to link college aid to new rating system

Calling growing student debt levels a “crisis”, United States President Barack Obama laid out a plan last Thursday aimed at reining in rising tuition costs by creating a system to rate colleges and eventually tie federal student aid to institutions' performance, write Colleen McCain Nelson and Caroline Porter for The Wall Street Journal.

The president called for rating colleges before the 2015 academic year on measures such as affordability and graduation rates – "metrics like how much debt does the average student leave with, how easy is it to pay off, how many students graduate on time, how well do those graduates do in the workforce,'' Obama told a crowd at the University at Buffalo (State University of New York).

Once a rating system is in place, Obama will ask Congress to allocate federal financial aid based on the scores by 2018. The president's plan drew mixed reviews from colleges and lawmakers, who would have to approve any measure linking the rating system to allocations of federal aid.
Full report on The Wall Street Journal site