Presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently released his proposal for reforming higher-education policy. His plan focuses on important areas and includes some valuable ideas, but its overall bias is toward increasing government spending before establishing what works, argue AAF’s Labor Market Data Analyst Isabel Soto and Data Analyst Tom Lee.

Bloomberg’s plan would:

• Double the maximum amount for Pell Grants, which would significantly increase government spending without addressing college affordability for all students, the stated goal of his plan;
• Create a new federal-state partnership to increase the federal government’s role in the creation of short-degree programs by employers, industry groups, and higher-education institutions, an intervention that could crowd out similar efforts by states or place unnecessary regulations on innovative programs;
• Reform the student-loan system to move away from traditional fixed-payment plans and toward income-driven repayment plans, a move that would increase the already high costs the federal government incurs from the student loan system; and
• Pass the bipartisan College Transparency Act, which could increase available data on post-collegiate outcomes but also raises many student privacy.

Read the analysis.