Every month, the AASA policy and advocacy team writes an
article that is shared with our state association executive directors, which
they can run in their state newsletters, a way to build a direct link not only
between AASA and our affiliates, but also AASA advocacy and our
superintendents. The article is called The Advocate, and
here is the November 2019 edition
This year negotiations began to reauthorize the Higher
Education Act (HEA), which is the authorizing statute that determines the
policies, procedures, and practices of the nation's higher education system.
HEA is supposed to be reauthorized every 6-7 years and was last updated in 2008. Given the amount of time since the last comprehensive HEA reauthorization, lawmakers on Capitol Hill were eager to dust off the law that governs the nation’s higher education system and implement long-awaited administrative and programmatic changes that have been called for by policymakers on both sides of the aisle. Unlike previous HEA reauthorizations, the process this year
began in the Senate as Chairman Lamar Alexander of the Health Education and
Labor (HELP) Committee announced his retirement in 2020 and is seeking one last
victory before leaving office.
Early in the process, Alexander indicated that he was
committed to conducting bipartisan negotiations with Ranking Member Patty
Murray. However, outstanding issues over Title II (teacher prep), Title IV
(student aid), and Title IX (sexual assault and harassment guidance)
effectively ended any bipartisan will to update HEA in the Senate. With his
back against the wall, Alexander took an unprecedented move of introducing a
piecemeal HEA package, dubbed The Student Aid Improvement Act, in an attempt to
advance his bipartisan priorities of simplifying FASFA, increase the
transparency of the cost of college, and extend Pell to short-term programs and
incarcerated individuals. Furthermore, he also attached his HEA priorities with
a separate $255 million bipartisan funding bill for black colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions
to bypass negotiations with Senate Democrats. In response, Murray announced
that the Democrats had no interest in a piecemeal approach, thereby kicking the
can to the House.
On the House side, Chairman Bobby Scott of the Education and
Labor committee released his comprehensive partisan reauthorization of HEA in
October—called the College Affordability Act—after seemingly waiting for
Alexander to make a move and several months of negotiations with other House
Democrats. Similarly, to Scott’s 2018 Aim Higher Act, the bill takes
substantial steps towards improving the affordability of post-secondary
programs for all students, while also delivering on a set of liberal lawmakers'
Higher Ed priorities. After reviewing the 1,000+ page text of the bill, AASA
was pleased to find the following updates to the law:
Title II
·
Under Title II of the Act, the bill reauthorizes
and expands the Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) Grant program, which enables
Institutes of Higher Education (IHE) and State Education Agencies (SEA) to
partner with a high needs Local Education Agency (LEA) to create cohort-based
teacher residency models that offer students clinical experience in school
settings. Specifically, the Act expands the allowable use of TQP grants to
develop school leader preparation programs (e.g., superintendent and principal
pipelines); empowers TQP grantees to develop "Grow Your Own"
partnerships for recruiting and supporting diverse paraprofessionals in gaining
professional teaching certifications; and, increases the authorized spending
level of the program to $500,000,000.
Title IV
· Under
Title IV, lawmakers made significant changes to the U.S. Dept. of Education TEACH
Grant program by redirecting the grant’s aid to junior and senior teacher prep
candidates and expanding the maximum award amount to $8,000 per year.
Furthermore, the bill also tackles critiques of the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness (PSLF) program by including language in the act to create one
Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan that addresses the public's confusion about
how to qualify for PSLF. House Dems also threw educators a win by streamlining PSLF
so that teachers can count loan payments for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness
program at the same time as PSLF, which reduces the number of monthly payments
that educators need to make to qualify for loan forgiveness.
·
Additionally, under Title IV the bill encourages
historically underrepresented student groups to earn college credits early by
increasing the authorized spending level of the TRIO and GEAR UP programs to
$1.2B. Moreover, the law emphasizes college completion by allocating additional
funding to states so that students can access early credit pathways such as
dual enrollment, early college high schools, and AP and IB and programs. Finally,
the bill expands access to post-secondary programs by simplifying the Free
Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Title IX
· Also,
of importance to superintendents, the bill directs the Secretary of Education
to abandon the U.S. ED's regulatory efforts to weaken existing Title IX
guidance to IHEs and LEAs.
Following the release of the College Affordability Act, the
bill was marked-up by the House Education Committee in the last week in October.
AASA submitted a letter in favor of
the legislation despite the fact that it was a highly partisan legislative product.
During the mark-up Republicans expressed strong opposition to the bill, criticizing
its $400,000,000 price tag as well as the bill's emphasis on four-year degrees.
Still, House Democrats succeeded in advancing H.R. 4674 out of the Education
and Labor Committee on a vote that was split down party lines (28-22). At this
point, the measure is headed to the House floor for a final vote before it can move
to the Senate, which according to reports, Scott hopes occurs sometime before 2020. That said, it’s unlikely that the College
Affordability Act will advance any further once it hits the Senate, considering
that the upper chamber is still under the GOP's control, and the act is far too
progressive for rank and file Republican Senators. Moreover, depending on how
the impeachment inquiry proceeds, much of the political breath on Capitol Hill
is expected to be spent on prosecuting or defending President Trump.
Consequently, this will leave little time for legislative matters. That said,
AASA will keep you abreast on all the latest higher ed updates, so stay tuned!