The Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings recently announced future plans to re-work the financial aid system.

Uwire with the story:

Spellings described five “actions” under her plan, including the creation of a “higher education information system” and the expansion of President Bush’s controversial No Child Left Behind program.

The information system would use privacy-protected, student-level data to improve the Department of Education’s ranking and searching systems.

These changes, according to Spellings, would provide more resources to help students research higher education and would allow for higher education to be judged on performance, not reputation. The data, however, would have to be provided by the colleges and universities themselves…

Another facet of Spellings’ plan involved improving the affordability of college through streamlining the financial aid process, and reducing the turnaround time for students to discover their financial-aid eligibility.

“We must increase need-based aid,” she said. “I look forward to teaming up with Congress again to improve the financial aid process and to help the students who need it the most.”

Spellings plan, however, has not gone without criticism.  Some Democrats are arguing that the system is squandering money and not serving the student’s best interests.  For the full article, click here.