NATIONAL NEWS — In a rare showing of bipartisan cooperation
and collective folly, the House of Representatives Education and Labor
Committee unanimously passed a bill on Nov. 15 to renew the Higher Education
Act. Called the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, one of its
major provisions would be the creation of “watch lists” of colleges that raise
tuitions at above-average rates. Another part of the bill blames colleges for the
illegal file-sharing routinely perpetuated by students and coerces them into
coming up with solutions.

According to the College Board; the average cost of a
four-year private school rose to $23,712 for the 2007-08 accademic year, up 6.3
percent from last year, while the average tuition for a four-year public school
increased to $6,185, up 6.6 percent. In contrast, inflation only rose 3.7
percent between October 2006 and October 2007. Because tuition rates are rising
far beyond inflation, it might seem that colleges are unfairly increasing their
tuitions. The new “watch lists” aim to stop universities with large endowments
from unfairly passing costs onto students.

On the surface, such a measure might seem reasonable.
However, according to a report by Inside Higher Ed, the top 10 most-endowed
private universities increased tuition at below-average rates this year, while
operating costs and expenses forced private schools with smaller endowments to
raise tuition at a higher rate. Other schools that the list affects are public
institutions in states that appropriate less money to public education.

The University of California system, with endowment assets
standing at $8.7 billion total as of June 2006, would actually have ended up on
the list because of the 7-percent increase in fees implemented for the 2007-08
academic year. However, the media has already lampooned the UC system,
justifiably in this situation, for its conduct, without the need for a “watch
list” that would unfairly penalize cash-strapped schools in other parts of the
nation. Furthermore, the lists do not actually do anything other than provide
data that is already available, and force states to establish task forces to
figure out where they can mitigate costs. Making schools develop more
bureaucratic bodies hardly seems like a way to help them reduce costs, while
the lists themselves do not exactly force a school to lower its tuition.

With the inclusion of a provision backed by the Recording
Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America
that targets colleges and students it becomes blindingly obvious that Congress
has no concern for schools. The bill would force every school participating in
federal financial aid programs to “develop a plan for offering alternatives to
illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as
well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal
activity.”

Ignoring the many legitimate uses for peer-to-peer file
sharing of intellectual property, such as distributing patches for software,
this portion of the bill represents a massive increase in costs for colleges.
“Alternatives to illegal downloading” are RIAA and MPAA code words for their
puppet organizations (such as Napster) that offer a fee-based service to
download music.

Forcing schools to pay these fees, as well as purchasing
anti peer-to-peer networking software, does nothing to enhance the quality of
education. Instead, such measures would lead to an increase in tuition costs to
fund these anti-downloading measures, thus contradicting the purpose of the
“watch lists”. Furthermore, students who do not intend to download music should
not be forced to suffer increased costs to satisfy the whims of the RIAA.

Moreover, college students are unlikely to care about
restrictions the school places on them. Students can either download music
through a non-university network or simply a backdoor to whatever network
restrictions the university puts in place. In addition, technical restrictions
on networks cause problems for users conducting legitimate activities, such as
Resnet’s security feature that cuts off a student’s Internet connection at the
first hint of trouble, even if it turns out that there was no actual security
risk. While Resent can justify its actions in the name of maintaining school
network security, it is immoral to allow misguided attempts at preserving
corporate profits in a failing music industry to interrupt student use of a
university network.

Renewing the Higher Education Act should be one of Congress’
top priorities, and it is refreshing to see bipartisan efforts toward a common
goal for once. However, ill-advised and foolhardy modifications to the act are
not in the best interests of the universities and students that these
legislators claim to serve.