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Senator Lamar Alexander said Thursday that he plans to attach an amendment to the labor, health, and education appropriations bill that would stop the Obama administration from moving ahead with its college ratings system.
Alexander, the top Republican on the Senate’s education committee, said in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday that the amendment would prohibit the U.S. Department of Education from “using any federal funding to develop, refine, publish or implement a college ratings system.”
He derided the college ratings system as a “taxpayer-funded popularity contest” that would “pick winners and losers.” “It’s not the job of the federal government,” Alexander said. “I have a serious practical concern with the department’s ability even to begin this effort.”
The Obama administration has said the ratings system is needed to provide better consumer information and hold colleges more accountable for their use of taxpayer money.
The spending bill that funds the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education cleared a Senate subcommittee earlier this week. But Democrats have postponed a vote on the measure by the full appropriations committee after Republicans said they would force politically difficult votes relating to President Obama’s health care law.
The bill’s sponsor, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, a Democrat, said Thursday that the bill is likely to be rolled into an omnibus appropriations package rather than be considered separately on the Senate floor.
