Inside Higher Ed reports on sections of the new House version of a “budget reconciliation” bill — a companion to forthcoming legislation to renew the Higher Education Act — that address the matter of college costs: Colleges that exceed certain ceilings — generally based on the percentage increase in costs (defined in various ways) — would have to file certain reports with the department. The detail demanded in those reports has some college officials fearful that such a move could set the stage for significant federal intervention into setting the price of college. Having long criticized financial opaqueness and runaway expenses on campuses, I share the perspective of Richard Vedder, who served on the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, and who, despite usually backing a minimal federal role in higher education, says that since he accepts that the federal government isn’t going to disentangle itself from higher education and that colleges won’t take costs seriously enough, he favors the reporting requirements. “Colleges and universities aren’t sensitive to costs, certainly not like the private [business] sector,” he said. “And a lot of the tuition money has gone to administrative costs or for higher salaries for faculty and non-faculty.” If Congress wants to expand student aid, Vedder said, it’s only responsible to get college to report more on why they charge what they do, in the hope of getting more of them to find ways to cut costs. “Universities need to be forced to be more sensitive to costs,” he said. “If you are going to drop money out of airplanes over universities — or you are going to give money to go students, an indirect version of the same thing, it behooves a university to meet certain standards.”