Here are some highlights of these reforms:

• Funding for Pell Grants will keep pace with rising college costs, so more families can afford to send their kids to college.
• Annual student-loan repayment amounts will be capped, so lower-income students won’t have to worry that their education will end up costing more than they can afford.
• Tax credits for families putting their kids through college will be tripled.
• The reforms also save the taxpayers millions every year by cutting government subsidies to banks.

In short, more American kids will be able to afford to go to college than ever before.  Thanks to you.

For years, you’ve been asking Congress to help America’s college-bound kids.  In December, education voters from across the country wrote their senators to let them know that we can’t allow rising college costs to prevent our kids from getting the education they need.  And just last week, hundreds more sent the same message to Congress before the big vote.

Even in the midst of the health-care debate, one thing was clear: education is still a priority for Americans, and we’re glad to see that Congress and the president made it a priority as well.

Thank you.  Your voices helped persuade Congress to make college more affordable.

According to an article in the Washington Monthly, the solution to rising college costs isn’t flashy or controversial.  In fact, Maryland has been holding down college costs without resorting to cuts in service, complicated funding schemes, or piling on the debt.  It all came down to having an efficient plan, and listening to the public:

How did Maryland manage to hold the line on tuition for four years in a row, when no other public university system was able to do so? The system’s board of regents insisted on some modest long-term operational efficiencies, and the universities’ administrators and faculty actually complied. Then elected officials, responding to political pressure, agreed to increase funding for higher education. It’s not a terribly shocking tale—unless you work in academia, in which case you talk about the Maryland example the way soldiers discuss the Battle of Thermopylae. Indeed, what’s astonishing about this story is not so much what happened as the fact that in other states, such things almost never do.

Maryland provides us with a great example of what we can accomplish with smart planning and a strong political will.

Click here for the full article.