MN college cost concerns drive a legislative rush at the Capitol

This could be the Year of the Consumer in Minnesota higher education.

State lawmakers from both parties have introduced dozens of bills responding to worries over the rising price of college and the struggles of graduates trying to pay off student loans.

Some would arm college students with more information about prospective colleges and programs, as well as the loans they take out to attend them. Others would offer more financial assistance. Some push changes designed to help students earn their degrees more quickly and at less cost.

"This has moved up to the front of the line for policymakers," said Larry Pogemiller, the state's higher education commissioner.

Lawmakers appear focused on three areas:

Information. Legislators want to give prospective students a better idea of what they're buying and give higher education officials a better tool for assessing colleges' performance.

Several bills would require both public and private campuses to disclose statistics such as what percentage of students in a given program graduate, how many get jobs, how much the average graduate earns, and how many end up defaulting on their student loans.

As students consider what college and major to choose, "they can figure out, 'Wow, will I make enough to pay [my student loan] off? And will I get hired?' Then they can be good consumers," said state Sen. Terri Bonoff, DFL-Minnetonka, chairwoman of the Senate higher education committee.

Financial help. Student loans are in the crosshairs. A proposal drafted by Attorney General Lori Swanson would require servicers of private student loans to give borrowers a complete rundown of their loan terms, such as exactly how much they owe, what the interest rate is, and when the first payment is due. They'd also have to list alternative repayment plans. Families often haven't been able to get straight answers about such things, Swanson said in December.

As legislators ponder requests to freeze tuition for another two years, some have also proposed making education free at community and technical colleges. They've called for loan-forgiveness programs to entice students to study in fields in high demand in Minnesota, such as teaching, health care and large-animal veterinary science.

One bill would establish debt-repayment counseling for students, and the state Office of Higher Education is working on a pilot program that would use state money to refinance expensive student loans.

Quicker degrees. Several bills are pushing state-run colleges and universities to make it easier for students to transfer credits from one campus to another. And some bills want to expand opportunities for pupils to earn college credit while still in high school. Student leaders have welcomed the legislation.

"It's important that our students move seamlessly from campus to campus," said Kaylee Schoonmaker, president of the association for students at Minnesota's two-year state colleges.

Several representatives of Minnesota's public and private campuses said they supported giving students more data, but cautioned that the state needs to present it in its proper context.

Programs such as social work, for example, are critical but serve low-paying fields, and should not be cast in a bad light, they said. And they said a technical college traditionally serves a different type of student from that of a private liberal-arts college, and so shouldn't fall under the same measuring stick.

The Minnesota Career College Association is "not at all opposed to transparency and protections for students," Turner Berg, president of the culinary school Le Cordon Bleu, said last month during testimony on a Senate bill that would regulate for-profit colleges.

But Berg told senators some of the legislation's requirements may run afoul of federal law. He also said the state might compile data differently than federal data sources do, which could cause confusion.

In a February letter to lawmakers, the association wrote that "more regulations and language ill-suited to how our schools serve students will only serve to 'muddy the waters', increasing regulation on schools serving the skills gap's most vulnerable students while doing little to improve student experience."

It's too early to say which bills will make it into law.

Bonoff said she thinks the final Senate higher education bill will include a data-disclosure proposal as well as language easing credit transfers and expanding high-school students' access to college courses.

She said she had included enough funding in one bill for a University of Minnesota tuition freeze — and said some loan-forgiveness proposals had a good shot at success — but said it was still unclear how much financial help the legislature could afford.

House education committee chairman Rep. Bud Nornes, R-Fergus Falls, warned that the House bill will be "simple." He said he's "100 percent behind" the proposed loan-forgiveness bills, but sounded skeptical about forcing colleges to "jump through a hoop."

"I don't see that the House [higher education committee] is going to have a whole lot of requirements — burdens that we're going to put on the systems just to get to some other level," he said.