On Friday, the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform voted on the final proposal released earlier last week.

The proposal received 11 of 18 votes in favor of the final plan which would reduce the deficit by  nearly $4 trillion over the next decade.

Though this is too few votes to command quick action in Congress, it does constitute more votes in favor of the plan than was expected.

The Commission’s final report proposed ideas and solutions to bring the federal budget into primary balance in 2015 and improve the long-run fiscal outlook.

The Commission recommended that a cap on discretionary spending be put into place through 2020. Higher education would be impacted by this cap. The intention of this recommendation was to hold spending to 2012 or lower than 2011 spending levels and return spending to precrisis 2008 levels in real terms in 2013. In addition, the recommendation limits spending growth to half the projected inflation rate through 2020.

Another recommendation by the Commission was to eliminate the in-school interest subsidy on federal loans. This would allow for the elimination of income-based subsidies for federal student loan borrowers and better target hardship relief for loan repayment.