The government would then give more aid to colleges with moderate tuition increases and strong educational outcomes and yank funding from those with the highest. College groups say they can’t evaluate the plan without more details.

Obama is also proposing $1 billion in “Race to the Top” college grants, modeled after an elementary and high school program that pushed states to agree to the White House’s education agenda. Under the college version, states that pushed for affordability could win money.

The Washington-based American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 college presidents, said it is concerned that this measure could damage colleges’ long history of autonomy.

“They want to centralize policy about academic programs in bureaucracies either in Washington or state houses,” said Terry Hartle, the organization’s senior vice president.

The Obama administration has also sought to crack down on career-training programs that leave students with poor job prospects. The regulations would have cut off funding for programs with the worst loan-repayment rates or the highest debt levels relative to their incomes. Colleges said the measures would restrict the access of poor and minority families to higher education.

For-Profit Colleges

For-profit colleges including Apollo Group Inc.’s University of Phoenix, the largest chain, waged a lobbying campaign opposing the plan, spending at least $6.6 million in 2010 and sending 90,000 letters to the U.S. Education Department.

The administration delayed and then eased the rules. In July, the industry successfully blocked them in court.

Private colleges have long fought Washington’s cost-control efforts. In 2003, U.S. Representative Howard “Buck” McKeon, a California Republican, unsuccessfully proposed cutting off federal aid from colleges that increased tuition and fees by more than twice the rate of inflation over a three-year period - - a plan private colleges called price controls.

In 2006, a commission appointed by Margaret Spellings, education secretary under President George W. Bush, tried to institute an information system that collects student-level data on institutions’ graduation rates, price, employment and earnings. Colleges would have also been required to give students standardized tests to determine what they learned in their undergraduate years.