University Business - August 2007 - (Page 29)

ON THE HILL Summer Break Many legislative issues await action until after Labor Day. By Alan Dessoﬀ ITH MEMBERS OF THE House and Senate scheduled to be away this month on their summer recess, further action on several signiﬁcant higher education issues awaits the lawmakers’ return to work after Labor Day. Issues at various stages of the legislative process include ﬁnancial aid, accreditation, student lending, technology, and gender discrimination. One key measure that will be up for a vote in the House would boost college ﬁnancial aid by about $18 billion over the next ﬁve years, including a $500 increase in the maximum Pell Grant, and cut federal subsidies paid to student lenders by $19 billion. Those are the features of the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 (H.R. 2669), passed in June by the House Education and Labor Committee with a claim by the committee chairman, Rep. George A. Miller (D-Calif.), that it would make the single largest investment in college ﬁnancial aid since the 1944 GI Bill. When combined with other Pell scholarship increases already passed or proposed by Congress this year, the maximum Pell Grant, now $4,700, would reach $4,900 next year and $5,200 by 2011, beneﬁting more than 6 million low- and moderateincome students, according to the House committee. The measure also includes $750 million in federal budget deﬁcit reduction and cuts interest rates on need-based student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over the next ﬁve years. When fully phased in, that would save the typical student borrower— with $13,800 in need-based student loan debt—more than $4,400 over the life of the loan, according to the House commit- W tee. About 6.8 million students take out need-based loans annually. In addition, the legislation would prevent student loan borrowers from facing unmanageable levels of federal student debt by guaranteeing that they will never have to spend more than 15 percent of their yearly discretionary income on loan repayments and by allowing borrowers in economic hardships to have their loans forgiven after 20 years. Other provisions of the College Cost Reduction Act provide loan forgiveness for college graduates who enter public service professions, and tuition assistance for excellent undergraduates who agree to teach in the nation’s public schools. “Not only does this legislation meet our promise of making college more aﬀordable, but it does so in a ﬁscally responsible way, at no new cost to taxpayers,” declared Miller in a statement following the committee’s passage of the bill. It now goes to the full House for its consideration with the support of a broad coalition of student advocacy groups and labor organizations. HEA AND ACCREDITATION In the Senate, meanwhile, where the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is moving forward with reau- thorization of the Higher Education Act, committee chairman Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) has asked Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to back oﬀ from proposing new regulations on accreditation until the HEA reauthorization is completed. Based on recommendations in the ﬁnal report last year of the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education, the Department of Education has conducted a contentious, negotiated rulemaking process to revise the rules on the accreditation process on issues including transfer of credit and new standards for learning outcomes. In a letter to Spellings, Kennedy said his committee plans to make changes to the section of HEA that deals with accreditation, including clarifying the department’s responsibilities with respect to recognizing accreditation agencies and organizations and specifying the criteria they should examine when reviewing higher ed institutions. “We support your overall goal of ensuring that our accreditation system is an eﬀective means of promoting quality in higher education,” Kennedy wrote, although committee members diﬀer on the particulars. However, given the committee’s expectation that current accreditation provisions “will soon be changed,” followed by rulemaking to implement the changes, “we respectfully ask that you refrain” from proposing new accreditation regulations, Kennedy wrote. The House Appropriations ComAlan Dessoﬀ is a former reporter for The Washington Post and a freelance writer based in Bethesda, Md. universitybusiness.com August 2007 | 29 http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - August 2007

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
People Watch
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Admissions
On the Hill
Future Shock
Independent Outlook
Facility Focus
Wanted: Foreign Students
Service With a Star
Beneficial Benefits
Addition By Subtraction
Report from EduComm 2007
Report Card
Internet Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - August 2007