February 23, 2007

Access to College and Bush's Budget Top Agenda at Meeting of Higher-Education Leaders

By RICHARD BYRNE and KELLY FIELD

In a speech delivered to college presidents last week, the new under secretary of education defended the administration's plan to end the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program and called on colleges to help the department remake the federal student-aid system.

"Do we not owe this country a different design for federal financial aid?" asked Sara Martinez Tucker in a talk at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education here.

Ms. Tucker, who took office in