The Republican leaders of the education committee in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Tuesday that "uncontrolled" price increases "threaten to put college out of reach for low- and middle-income students and families within the next decade." Higher education, the lawmakers declared, is facing a "crisis."

In a news release issued on Tuesday, Reps. John A. Boehner of California and Howard P. (Buck) McKeon of California said that curbing tuition increases will be among their top priorities when they draft legislation renewing the Higher Education Act, the law that governs most federal financial-aid programs. Mr. Boehner is the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Mr. McKeon heads the subcommittee on that panel that has jurisdiction over higher-education issues.

While college lobbyists were unhappy with much of the rhetoric of the news release, they said that the lawmakers appeared to have softened some of their earlier positions, particularly on issues related to college accountability. Some also took the release to signal that the Republican lawmakers were reconsidering Mr. McKeon's controversial proposal to restrict colleges that raise their prices beyond a certain point from participating in the federal student-aid programs.

But finding meaning in the release was difficult, some lobbyists said. "This document is long on rhetoric, but short on detail," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education. "It's hard to tell what exactly they intend."

The lawmakers were clear, however, that they consider escalating college prices to be the biggest problem they will have to confront when renewing the Higher Education Act.

"The higher-education system is in crisis, and federal higher-education programs aren't having the impact they should for parents and students," Mr. Boehner said. "The federal role in higher education needs to be realigned to confront the cost crisis head-on."

The lawmakers said that the student-aid programs have become ineffectual as colleges continue to "rapidly increase" their prices, leaving higher education "out of reach for many needy students."

To deal with the problem, they said, Congress should hold colleges accountable for price increases, but should do so without having the government "intrude" on colleges' affairs in "an overly burdensome" way." Congress can do this by asking colleges to make information about price increases "more available to parents and students." Lawmakers could also punish colleges for raising their prices too high, they said. But they did not specify the types of penalties they would consider asking Congress to impose.

In March, Mr. McKeon introduced a plan that would penalize colleges that increased their cost of attendance by twice the rate of inflation or more for two years in a row by, among other things, removing their eligibility to participate in the government's student-aid programs (The Chronicle, May 2).

The fact that the threat of losing student aid was not mentioned in the news release was taken by some college lobbyists as a signal that the lawmakers were backing away from that proposal. The lobbyists also noted that Mr. McKeon's plan would represent a major federal intrusion into the policies of colleges.

But a spokesman for the House education committee rejected that interpretation of the news release. "Anybody who thinks that the congressmen are backing away from Mr. McKeon's proposal would be wrong," said the spokesman, David Schnittger.

Other omissions in the report also pleased college lobbyists. Some had feared that Congress and the Bush administration could push for the testing of college students to determine how much the students had learned in college. The lobbyists have also worried about proposals that would link colleges' eligibility to award federal student aid to their effectiveness in retaining students and graduating them.

Neither of these proposals was included in the news release. Instead, the lawmakers' plan to "improve quality and innovation" would focus on getting better information out to students and their parents so that families can make better-informed decisions about where to spend their tuition dollars.

"Choosing a college is a decision that will affect a student for the rest of his or her life," the news release said. "For that reason, Republicans believe, colleges should have an obligation to provide useful, easy to use, and understandable information so students and parents can make this monumental decision with all the facts in hand."

In addition, the lawmakers say they would like to see accreditation agencies provide more information to the public about their evaluations of colleges. "By opening the accreditation process, and allowing a more clear understanding of the factors involved in this process, the public will have an important window into the nation's colleges and universities."

The lawmakers list two other priorities -- "removing barriers for nontraditional students" and "realigning student-aid programs to ensure fairness for America's neediest students."

As part of the effort to help nontraditional students, the lawmakers say they believe that "innovative solutions such as distance learning and the use of advanced technology in the classroom can provide nontraditional college students with a chance to succeed." For example, the lawmakers will probably push legislation that would ease or eliminate a restriction under which colleges that enroll more than half of their students through distance education cannot offer financial aid.

Of student aid, the lawmakers say that money from the programs should be going to students from the lowest-income families, rather than "subsidizing individuals who have long since earned their degrees and entered the work force." The two lawmakers would like to curb the growth of the federal loan-consolidation program, by making it a less-attractive option for borrowers. Money saved from subsidies the government now provides to those who consolidate their loans can instead go back into the student-aid programs, they say.