Advocates not sure how much of presidents plan to cut tuition growth was political rhetoric 
or actual policy
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas A re-elected Barack Obama will most likely continue to side-step a bitterly divided Congress and seek to
change education policy through his own executive and regulatory authority say well-connected higher-ed advocates. While economic
concerns took center stage during the course of the 2012 Presidential Race
higher-education issues were often embedded in broader economic narratives.
The Obama administration over the past four years sharply expanded the federal governments role in overseeing colleges and universities often with no evidence that there was a serious problem that needed regulation said Terry W. Hartle senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education.
He cited as examples some of the Education Departments regulations on
gainful employment state authorization of online programs and academic issues like the definition of a
credit hour.
But with Mr. Obamas re-election We expect to see that continued emphasis on what our institutions d
o said David S. Baime senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges.
Looking forward to a second Obama term many other higher-education advocates said they expected the presidents support for federal student-aid programs to continue albeit under increased budgetary pressure as Congress wrestles with a host of difficult fiscal issues in the coming months.
Both campaigns responded to anxiety over the cost of a college education the unemployment rate for recent college graduates and the burden of
student-loan debt which reached the
$1-trillion milestone as the campaign was beginning this year.
Discussing higher-education policies on the campaign trail Mr. Obama touted his administrations expansion of federal aid programs which included increasing funds for Pell Grants and a more generous income-based
repayment program for student loans. His campaign trumpeted as a success the end of the federal bank-based lending program a change that proponents said converted wasteful taxpayer subsidies for banks into direct aid for students.
In offering policies to speed up the economic recovery the president often highlighted the role of community colleges in career training
proposing a 
program that would provide federal money to community colleges and states with the goal of training about two million workers.
Regulatory Push
Over the past four years the Obama administration has argued that it will not wait for Congress to pass what it has viewed as needed education reforms in both schools and higher education.
Some of the administrations executive action has been relatively uncontroversial. The president signed an
executive order aimed at strengthening consumer protections for student veterans for instance. More recently the administration used a regulatory maneuver to speed up the start of the more generous repayment program for borrowers of federal loans.
Other executive action has been more fraught. For-profit colleges have protested the regulatory scrutiny theyve received from the Department of Education while traditional institutions have also expressed concern over what they view as unnecessary and burdensome requirements.
We assume unfortunately that their willingness to impose comprehensive regulations on
postsecondary institutions will continue unabated Mr. Hartle said.
More specifically Robert L. Moran director of federal relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities said he expected the administration to continue its aggressive push on program integrity such as the forthcoming regulations on
teacher-education programs.
Further Goals
One unanswered question going into Mr. Obamas second term is how and with how much gusto his administration will forge ahead with the presidents stated goal of reducing by half the rate of tuition growth over the next decade. Mr. Obama said in this years State of the Union address and in a later speech at the University of Michigan that he wanted to tie some federal aid to an institutions ability to slow the growth of tuition.
During the campaign this year Mr. Obama cited that plan along with more generous loan-repayment programs as part of his college-affordability agenda.
Some higher-education advocates said it was unclear how much of the presidents plan for cutting tuition growth was political rhetoric and how much would translate into actual policy proposals. The administration has not laid out the specifics of how it would go about achieving its goal.
There is no proposal as yet said Mr. Hartle. The administration has discussed it a great deal this year including discussions with the higher-education community but they never put a formal proposal together.
The leadership of the Congressional education committees will remain roughly the same though Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is likely to replace Sen. Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming as the top Republican on the Senate education committee because Mr. Enzis term as ranking member is limited.
At a minimum the debate over reauthorizing the Higher Education Act will take shape during the next Congress some of which will be affected by how federal aid programs fare during the negotiations in the coming months over the deficit and expiring tax cuts.
