It’s pretty much the same reason why he can’t pay for your mortgage or put gas in your car, or slow the rise of the oceans.

George Leef of Minding The Campus explains it all here.

In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, President Obama promised that he would “work with colleges and universities” to slow the steady rise in tuition we have experienced, cutting the rate of increase in half. Inside Higher Ed has the story.

Naturally, the president’s statement drew applause from the Democratic faithful, but is there the slightest reason to think that Obama can slow the rise in tuition any more than King Canute could roll back the tide? I think not.

First, the executive branch of the federal government has no constitutional authority over higher education. The president can “jaw-bone” college leaders, imploring them not to increase tuition, just as President Kennedy pleaded with steel executives not to raise prices in 1962, but he can’t command either private college officials or state university leaders to keep tuition at any level.

Second, there are reasons why tuition has been increasing and it’s hard to see how President Obama is going to change the underlying reality. He continues to encourage more young people to go to college and has facilitated that by getting Congress to increase Pell grant amounts. More students with more money to spend – that’s a perfect recipe for college officials to increase their revenues. Why wouldn’t they take advantage of the situation, just because the president made a speech?

Third, it’s possible that Obama might resort to asking Congress to enact some kind of price control over higher education, threatening to take away federal dollars unless the schools keep their price increases down to “reasonable” levels. The Republicans threatened to do that back in the Bush years, but the bill never went anywhere, and for good reason. Price controls are blunt, clumsy instruments that are easy to evade.

Finally, merely halving the rate of increase in college costs, assuming that could be done, wouldn’t be much of a victory. If indeed college and university administrators felt pressured to cut costs, there is little reason to think that they would start with the most needless of budget items. In California, for instance, where the state’s budgetary woes have required cuts in university budgets, the sacred cows of “diversity”–academic programs and administrative offices – have been spared.

Lower tuition sounds good, but what Americans should want from higher education is increasing value. We’ll only get that through more competition.