A commission charged by Congress with investigating the rising cost of higher education released its findings last Wednesday, calling for redoubled efforts to cut costs and reduce red tape.

The National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education was charged by Congress in May 1997 with finding "innovative methods of reducing or stabilizing tuition."

Harvard officials have tried to persuade legislators that tuition is justified by the costs of providing a Harvard education. At first, commission members seemed swayed, but the final report argues that colleges and the government must take a more aggressive stance on cost control.

The 11-member panel was expected to release its report last December, but stern criticism from Republican legislators--who said the commission underestimated the role colleges should play in containing costs--delayed the commission's conclusions.

The tone of the final report suggests a crisis is pending.

"The commission [finds] that the nation's academic institutions, justly renowned for their ability to analyze practically every other major economic activity...have not devoted similar analytic attention to their own internal financial structures," the group's report stated.

Data in the report reveal that the sticker price of attending college has increased faster than the cost of education each student.

For example, the cost per student at private four-year colleges increased by 69 percent from 1987 to 1996, whereas tuition increased by 99 percent during the same period.

The chair of the commission. William E. Trout, also the president of Belmont University, said that trend, of tuition hikes outstripping cost increases, has started to change--in a disturbing way.

The panel found that, although tuition prices have started to stabilize, thecosts of educating continue to rise. If this trendpersists, higher education will find itself in aserious cost crunch.

To avoid this, the commission offered the fivefollowing strategies for controlling costs andclarifying finances.

. Individual institutions should strengthenefforts to control costs and increaseinstitutional productivity.

. Colleges ought to improve market informationand public accountability. "More useful, accurate,timely, and understandable" information on howmuch it costs to educate each student and thetypes of aid that are available should be madepublic.

. Federal and state governments should takeaction to deregulate higher education.

"Less costly and more easily manageable"approaches to government regulation of highereducation would result in increased productivity.New strategies should emphasize "performanceinstead of compliance and differentiation in placeof standardization."

. The academic community needs to rethinkaccreditation.

The 60 specialized accrediting agenciesoverseeing academic programs "increase red tapeand drive up costs." The academic community shoulddevelop more coordinated accrediting processes.

. The government should enhance and simplifystudent aid procedures. The manner in which aid isnow delivered "confuses students and families."Regulations are "internally inconsistent andexcessive."

Congress should continue offering existingstudent aid programs while simplifying andimproving the financial aid delivery system.

Trout said that implementing theserecommendations will require cooperation byeveryone involved with higher education.

"We need a real shared partnership betweenCongress, institutions of higher education andAmerican families to deal with the very importantissue of college affordability," he said