“Over the past three decades, the average tuition at a public four-year college has gone up by more than 250 percent -- 250 percent. Now, a typical family's income has only gone up 16 percent.” These are President Obama’s words during a speech at the University of Buffalo yesterday, where he outlined the administration’s plan to help make higher education more affordable.

His solutions to the problem range from linking state and federal funding to an institution’s “performance” (based on yet-to-be-determined metrics) to capping the amount a borrower has to pay back on his or her debt. In short, his proposal gets the federal government more involved in higher education.

With students being forced to take on an increasingly large mountain of debt to graduate, we must confront this issue. But I do not agree with his “solutions.”

Last month, Congress pushed aside political differences and worked together to formulate a fiscally responsible, long-term solution to student loans. H.R. 1911, the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act, moves federal student loans to a market-based interest rate, allowing students to take advantage of interest rates in today’s low interest rate environment and caps interest rates on Stafford and PLUS loans. The bill was signed into law on August 9, 2013.

While I am proud to have worked with my colleagues across the aisle to support legislation that will provide relief to students and parents who face the burden of inflated education costs and overwhelming debt loads, rates are only one variable of the much-larger problem.

New forms of tuition assistance, as the President proposed, will not address the rising cost of college tuition. Indeed, such a proposal is akin to a doctor who sees a patient with a broken arm and prescribes medication for the pain but fails to treat the break. We addressed the ‘pain’ with H.R. 1911. Now, we need to examine the reason behind the rising cost of tuition.

According to the Department of Education, from 2001-2011, the hiring of administrators has increased 50 percent faster than that of teachers. In 2011, administrative spending cost each student at the University of Buffalo more than $4,000. While colleges and universities need to return to their core mission of educating the student body and adequately preparing them to successfully enter the workforce, the federal government shares a significant portion of the blame for the administrative boom. A 2011 study by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance examined federal regulations in higher education and identified many that are highly burdensome and ineffective. One example is a requirement for colleges and universities to report data on music downloading.

Congress needs to do its part to help students by removing federal intrusion in higher education and allowing colleges and universities to focus on teaching, rather than onerous reporting requirements. Requirements like this necessitate the administrative positions that are the cause of ballooning costs, and they do nothing for students in the classroom.