A key Republican member of Congress is expected to announce today that he will no longer pursue a proposal that would penalize colleges that raise their prices too high by preventing them from participating in some federal student-aid programs.

Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, the California Republican who heads the principal subcommittee on higher education in the House of Representatives, is planning to introduce comprehensive legislation in the next couple of weeks to renew the Higher Education Act, a process called reauthorization. Sources familiar with some details of the proposed legislation say that it does not include the controversial college-cost penalties.

Telephone calls made to Mr. McKeon's office for comment Tuesday night were not returned.

Mr. McKeon's proposal was not popular with many of his Republican colleagues. Fiscal conservatives, in particular, complained that the plan would impose price controls on colleges that would inevitably lead to a deterioration in the quality of academic programs.

To try to win over his colleagues' support, he made significant changes to his initial plan. Under the original proposal, colleges that increased their tuition and other costs of attendance by twice the rate of inflation or more for two years in a row would have lost their eligibility to participate in all of the federal student-aid programs (The Chronicle, May 2, 2003).

But when he introduced a bill (HR 3311) in October, he softened those penalties. Under the legislation, for example, no college would be in jeopardy of losing federal aid until 2011. In addition, the bill would exempt many low-priced colleges from being penalized (The Chronicle, October 24, 2003).

Despite his efforts, many Republican lawmakers remained unpersuaded. For example, Rep. Scott McInnis, a Republican from Colorado, circulated a letter in the House criticizing the legislation as taking the wrong approach and creating "a number of dangerous precedents" (The Chronicle, January 23).

Perhaps most damaging to Mr. McKeon's efforts, however, was the decision by Bush administration officials not to back the bill.

In an interview with The Chronicle last month, Sally Stroup, the U.S. Education Department's assistant secretary for postsecondary education, made it clear that the administration would not support Mr. McKeon's proposal. "What we are trying to determine is, what is the best solution for addressing this issue, short of having the government try to control tuition, which is probably not where we want to be," she said (The Chronicle, February 13).

Although the comprehensive reauthorization bill, which will combine several bills that were introduced last year by Mr. McKeon's panel, will not include the Congressman's proposal, it is expected to include provisions requiring colleges to report more-detailed information about their prices to the government and to the public.

In addition, the legislation will include provisions to revamp the federal student-aid programs. Details of these provisions have not been released yet.

Mr. McKeon's staff members have reportedly been delayed in introducing the bill while waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to complete its work estimating how much the provisions in the legislation will cost the federal government.