HEA Put on Backburner for NCLB

Congress is working on two separate measures for higher education. First, both chambers have passed a Higher Education reconciliations bill, H.R. 2669, as directed in the fiscal year 2008 (FY08) joint budget resolution. That resolution instructed the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate Health, Education, labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee to find $750 million in deficit-reducing cuts to mandatory programs that fall within the two panels' jurisdictions. The Senate also passed a reauthorization package for the Higher Education Act (HEA), which expired in 2004. Congress has passed multiple extensions over the last three years, due to a lack of consensus on reauthorization policies.

By a vote of 95-0, the Senate passed S. 1642, Higher Education Amendments, reauthorizing the Higher Education Act (HEA) on Tuesday, July 24. The unanimous vote signals the only truly bipartisan support for any legislation that has made its way to the Senate floor this year. After only two days of debate, the Senate was able to pass the bill much more quickly than usual. However, since the House has not moved forward on its own reauthorization legislation, both chambers had to pass a three-month extension of the HEA, giving the House additional time to produce its own comprehensive package.

The Senate bill, which reauthorizes higher education programs for five years, represents the first renewal of the HEA since 1998. Provisions within S. 1642 include:

• Increasing the amount of information that schools and lenders must provide to students, including up-front disclosure of loan rates and terms and data on total school costs, and would ban lenders from giving schools financial aid funds or any other perks to get on a preferred lender list;
• Directing the U.S. Secretary of Education to assess costs that drive tuition increases and examine ways to contain costs and track pricing trends, alerting schools that the government will monitor tuition increases and consider ways to curb them; and
• Requiring colleges and universities to draft codes of conduct governing relationships with lenders, shorten the application form for federal student aid, and authorize a pilot program to allow students to learn the total aid they can expect to receive up to two years in advance.

Before final passage, the Senate adopted Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) amendment, which bars colleges and universities from using federal funds or student aid money for lobbying, and would require schools to certify to the Education Secretary that they abide by those terms. Coburn’s original proposal also prohibited use of tuition money for lobbying purposes, but a secondary amendment from Sen. Kennedy, adopted by a 93-0 vote, removed that language from the underlying amendment, which the Senate accepted by a voice vote.

Shortly after passing S. 1642, the Senate passed a short HEA extension, to run through October 31, 2007, since the House has not made any progress on its own reauthorization. Although both chambers have passed H.R. 2669, a higher education reconciliation bill, there is no HEA reauthorization legislation for the House Education and Labor Committee to review. While Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) has not set out a timetable for reauthorization, he did promise that the House will eventually move forward with its own comprehensive package. Recently, Chariman Miller decided that the committee will not take up the HEA until it completes work on the No Child Left Behind reauthorization. The three-month HEA extension seems to show that the House may not move as quickly as the Senate did, especially considering that the House will not likely have any legislation completed before October.

Meanwhile, both chambers can now move forward on the reconciliation package. H.R. 2669 now goes to conference, where the leadership will have to settle the major differences between the two versions. The biggest difference is that the House bill, passed last week, halves the interest rates on subsidized student loans, from 6.8% to 3.4%. This rate cut is part of House Democrats’ “Six for ’06” agenda that Chairman Miller seems unwilling to sacrifice. While Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Chairman, is likely to be equally stubborn on Senate provisions, such as auctioning the right to offer federally backed PLUS loans to parents, the Senate measure has factors working in its favor. The President has already made a veto threat on the House bill, while only expressing “serious concern” with the Senate proposal. The fact that the White House has offered to negotiate with Sen. Kennedy gives Senate conferees the upper hand in negotiating with the House.

Resources:
Doug Lederman, “Unanimity in the Senate,” Inside Higher Ed, July 25, 2007.
Karey Wutkowski, “Senate Backs Crackdown on Student Loan Problems,” Reuters, July 24, 2007.
Libby George, “Kennedy Gives Higher Education Package ‘Outside Chance’ of Quick Passage,” CQ Today, July 24, 2007.
Author: SAS