8/25/97

CONTACT: Kathleen O'Toole, News Service (415) 725-1939;
e-mail kathleen.otoole@stanford.edu

Hoover's Anderson named to panel on higher education costs

Martin Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has been selected to serve as a member of a new National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education.

The commission is to submit a report to President Clinton and Congress in December with recommendations for administrative and legislative action. Anderson, the author of the book Impostors in the Temple: A Blueprint for Improving Higher Education in America and a domestic and economic policy adviser to Presidents Nixon and Reagan, was appointed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The bipartisan commission has 11 members ­ three appointed by Gingrich, three by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, two by Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, two by House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and one by Secretary of Education Richard Riley. It has been given a budget of $650,000 and asked to study and recommend action on:

• Reducing or stabilizing tuition costs and comparing their increase with other commodities and services;
• Trends in administrative costs, including the ratio of administrative staff to students, and the remuneration of college and university presidents;
• Trends in faculty pay, the number of hours spent in the classroom by faculty and tenure practices, and the impact of such trends on tuition;
• The extent to which government regulations and mandates have contributed to increasing tuition costs;
• The extent to which student financial aid programs have contributed to changes in tuition, and the adequacy of existing federal and state aid programs in meeting the costs of attending colleges and universities.

The commission is authorized to hold hearings, request information from federal agencies and request the detailing of agency personnel to assist the commission.

Other members of the commission are Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of California Independent Colleges and Universities; Clare Cotton, Brown's counterpart in Massachusetts; William Hansen, executive director of the Education Finance Council, which represents non-profit agencies that buy student loans from banks; Frances Norris, a former federal education official who is now with the Dutko Group, a lobbying company; George Waldner, president of York College of Pennsylvania; William Troutt, president of Belmont University, Nashville; Walter Massey, president of Morehouse College in Atlanta; Blanche Touhill, chancellor of the University of Missouri at St. Louis; Robert Burns, a political science professor at South Dakota State University; and Barry Munitz, chancellor of California State University.

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By Kathleen O'Toole