“The basic idea of the proposal is for the federal government to try to incentivize universities to pay more attention to things like student access, retention and graduation, and also pay greater attention to those rates for students who come from low and moderate income families,” assistant professor and expert in higher, adult and lifelong education Brendan Cantwell said.

The Big Ten committee was formed at the Association of Big Ten Schools Conference in January and was tasked with the job of responding to President Obama’s proposal and suggesting ways in which the federal rating system could better influence students.

“The goal has not been to criticize the document — the committees’ goal is to try and provide helpful and positive assistance to the Department of Education as they develop this framework,” ASMSU Vice President for Governmental Affairs KC Perlberg said.

“We discussed things that we think need to be clarified as well as gave input into what we thought the effects of the rating system might be if we understood it as is,” Perlberg said.

One of the committee's main goals in providing feedback was to express their concern over the proposed federal rating system's plan for basing a university's value on post-graduation factors like student's average earnings, graduation school attendance and completion rates, and other factors based on an "economically centered viewpoint," according to the committee's feedback. 

"This limited view of the higher education experience would inevitably favor institutions specializing in more lucrative fields, such as finance and business, at the expense of institutions that specialize in other fields, such as teaching," the document reads.  

The Department of Education had received 175 public comments on President Obama’s proposal by December of 2014 and The Big Ten Committees’ feedback will only be one of many more to be submitted before the deadline this Wednesday. Perlberg is confident though that their feedback will be influential since they have the backing of all Big Ten student governments.

Perlberg also sees the committee’s feedback as a first step in a long discussion with the Department of Education in creating a clear federal college rating system framework—one that will continue in April during ASMSU’s lobbying trip to D.C.

“This is really just the first step for us, it will be influential if we can continue the conversation by establishing a relationship with the Department of Education and having a meeting with them in April when we go to D.C.,” Perlberg said. 

President Obama's proposed federal college rating system still prompts many questions as to it's implementation and fairness, Professor Cantwell said, but he encouraged public feedback and saw the value in The Big Ten Committees' submission. 

"I think that students are important stakeholders in the higher education system and students have important insights about policy because it directly effects them," he said.