The College Fix

President Obama advised colleges and universities to make their tuition rates more affordable during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. If universities don’t comply, they will lose federal funding, he warned:

Of course, it’s not enough for us to increase student aid. We can’t just keep subsidizing skyrocketing tuition; we’ll run out of money. States also need to do their part, by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets. And colleges and universities have to do their part by working to keep costs down. Recently, I spoke with a group of college presidents who’ve done just that. Some schools re-design courses to help students finish more quickly. Some use better technology. The point is, it’s possible. So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down. Higher education can’t be a luxury — it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.

The president also took a hard line on secondary education, urging all 50 states to pass laws that would require kids to stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.

Rory Cooper, Communications Directory at the Heritage Foundation, made fun of this policy suggestion, claiming in a Tweet that Obama had essentially said: “I am proposing 50 state laws that are neither my responsibility, nor something I can be held accountable for.”

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