Kerry offers college aid plan

CHICAGO -- Presidential candidate John F. Kerry said yesterday that he would give $10 billion to states for higher education if they capped soaring college tuition increases, a proposal that would provide at least $150 million for the University of Massachusetts and other public campuses and give the federal government a role in setting student tuitions for the first time.

In one of his most vigorously liberal speeches of the campaign season, the Massachusetts senator also pledged to spend $300 million annually to "encourage" one million more girls and minorities to study math and science, and an additional $100 million a year on a "college completion fund" to reward schools that graduate more Pell Grant recipients, many of whom come from low-income or minority families. An additional $100 million a year would go for math and science scholarships, and $5,000 bonuses would reward new teachers in those fields.

The presumptive Democratic nominee, who dubbed the proposals "a new GI Bill for the new century," would fund the higher education initiatives by increasing taxes on Americans who earn more than $200,000 a year -- an income bracket that has enjoyed tax relief under the Bush administration -- and selling part of the US broadcast spectrum system.

The one-time $10 billion fund would be divided among the states based on their percentage of US students at two-year and four-year public campuses; Massachusetts enrolled 1.5 percent of those students nationwide. If all 50 states were eligible for the money, Massachusetts would receive $150 million; those funds would increase if other states opted out.

In the same speech, Kerry -- who is running as a political moderate and faces a challenge from the left by independent candidate Ralph Nader -- put aside his centrist rhetoric and zeroed in on traditional Democratic themes, winning nine standing ovations from his predominantly black audience at a meeting of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

Kerry pledged to raise the minimum wage, make health care a right for all Americans, and aggressively enforce civil rights laws. Seeking to energize his African-American voter base, he compared the Florida ballot-box debacle of 2000 with Jim Crow scare tactics to keep blacks away from the polls.

Kerry contended that many young people get in trouble with the law because adults have failed them. He said many girls and minorities need boosts in self-confidence to flourish in school; all-girls' schools would receive money from his proposed $300 million fund.

"Early on, too many kids are steered away from math and science -- by their teachers, by their parents, or by friends. Too many are told, 'Oh, you're not good at this, or you're not good at that, or it ain't the cool thing to do so don't do it,' " Kerry said, noting surveys that show a fall-off in girls' interest in math and science between the fourth and eighth grades. "As president, I'll give all Americans, especially women and minorities, the same encouragement. And we have to give it early on."

Kerry opened his address on a confessional note that was unusual for his day-to-day speeches, disclosing that he was "wary" of speaking to Rainbow/PUSH. His fear was not about the speech or the audience, but rather, he said, that the audience wouldn't trust his intentions to help them.

"I know there's a cynicism, I know you're tired of words. So am I," Kerry said. "Broken promises have been broken so often that it's hard for people to summon up that inside psychic energy necessary to go out and make a difference. Let me tell you something -- people are different in this business. There are some of us who keep our word."

And in a retort to the Bush campaign's frequent attacks on him as a pessimist, Kerry unveiled a new counterattack, saying: "The most pessimistic thing that you can say is that we can't do better in the United States of America."

Of the new education spending proposals, which would probably face resistance in the Republican-dominated Congress, Kerry's carrot-and-stick approach to influencing college tuition is the most unusual -- and most resonant with the concerns of parents he has met on the campaign trail and of respondents to polls and surveys, education analysts said.

The thrust would involve dividing up $10 billion to states that commit to holding tuition increases to a rate of inflation -- in essence giving money for public colleges that have lost funding from their own states and have been raising tuition and fees to replace it.

Kerry repeatedly notes on the stump that tuition is up 35 percent over the last three years. Some analysts dispute that, noting that financial aid has risen as well. Tuition hikes at independent campuses, which dominate the Massachusetts landscape, would not be factored into Kerry's proposal because states have no influence over their tuition rates.

Democratic politicians have historically opposed federal tuition price controls, and Kerry advisers emphasized this week that the proposal is not a price control but a voluntary tuition cap that would be rewarded with incentives.

Among the potentially controversial elements of Kerry's plan is the inflation measure, analysts said. Kerry said yesterday that colleges would have to limit tuition increases to the rate of inflation. The consumer price index is currently about 3 percent, far lower than recent waves of tuition increases. But a campaign adviser said afterward that Kerry would work with colleges to set a compromise rate.

College leaders and education analysts reacted cautiously but positively to Kerry's plan yesterday, saying they wanted to see how the money would be distributed and the tuition limit.

"Is there an obligation of the state to send it back to the campus via line item, or can the state spend it any way they want?" asked Stephen Tocco, chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education. "Institutions would ask, 'What's in it for us if we don't know whether we're going to get it?'"

But State Senator Steven C. Panagiotakos, a Lowell Democrat who cochairs a task force on higher education, said families have been hampered in affording college and planning for those costs by increases in tuition and fees.

At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, fees rose 60 percent between the 2001-2002 school year and the 2002-2003 year, to $6,500. At the same time, tuition stayed at $1,714. (None of this includes the cost of room and board.)

"If that pot of money was available, the Legislature would jump at the chance, and do whatever we had to do to take advantage of it," Panagiotakos said.

Bush's reelection campaign accused Kerry was ginning up a crisis over college costs to play on parents' fears.

"Kerry's cynical attacks are at odds with the facts that more Americans have college degrees than ever before, and the amount students pay in tuition costs is down by a third since 1998," said spokesman Steve Schmidt, citing reports that growing financial aid funds have kept the actual cost of college paid by students relatively modest.

Globe staff member Marcella Bombardieri contributed to this article from Boston. Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.