After a period of deadlock, the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education has finally adopted 42 recommendations aimed at making college less expensive. The report is supposed to be the backdrop to congressional debate on reauthorization of the Higher Education Act -- a $40 billion package of loans, tuition tax deductions, financial aid and institutional grants.

Major recommendations of the commission to Congress include:

• Repealing the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which requires colleges to provide the Internal Revenue Service with personal financial information about students and their parents -- a requirement estimated to cost institutions $150 million annually.

• Encouraging colleges to reduce costs by concentrating on "a few priority areas where excellence can be sustained" and by entering into "cost-saving partnerships."

• Refraining from imposing any type of federal price controls, but continued support of "projects addressing issues of productivity, efficiency, quality improvement and cost control."

• And investigating the possibility of extending aid to part-time students.

An issue of contention among commission members was proposing changes to a 1994 federal law that prohibited colleges from forcing tenured professors to retire at a set age. Critics contend that has allowed professors to teach well beyond age 70 -- and resulted in a graying of America's faculties. Congress may allow individual institutions to write specifically designed early-retirement packages that are within existing legal guidelines.