The good folks at ACE have put together a summary of the major provisions of the new HEA--it became law on Aug. 14 after President Bush signed it.
For the mildly curious, here's a PDF of the analysis. And as always, if you have any questions please let me know.
http://www.acenet.edu/e-newsletters/p2p/ACE_HEA_analysis_818.pdf
21 August 2008
01 August 2008
Off to the President's House.....
Last night both House and Senate voted favorably for the Higher Education Act reauthorization. No word on what the president will do...developing.
So what does it all mean and what does higher education say about all of this? Under the unmbrella of ACE the major university associations sent this letter to the leadership of the House and Senate (http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=LettersGovt&CONTENTID=28138&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm)
Peter McPherson, NASULGC President sent out a nice overview of the compromise legislation--the good and the bad. Here it is...
After more than five years of work and for the first time since 1998, the Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization bill passed both the House and Senate today. The House adopted the measure by a vote of 380 to 49. The Senate followed suit tonight and passed it by a vote of 83 to 8. The President is expected to sign the legislation.
The bill includes provisions that will benefit students. It implements year-round Pell Grants and reauthorizes critical student aid programs, such as the Pell program, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG), Perkins Loans, Federal Work Study, Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships (LEAP), TRIO, and GEAR UP programs.
As a result of your active engagement and outreach to your representatives and senators, the final bill addresses or at least partially mitigates many of the concerns that we in the academic community had with earlier versions of the bill. These changes and improvements would not have been possible without the significant input of NASULGC members weighing in with Congress. While we saw positive changes during the legislative process, the legislation still contains some of provisions that we do not like.
Changes to bill language regarding accreditation represent a significant accomplishment for the community. The bill language would now explicitly prohibit the Secretary of Education from dictating standards for accrediting agencies to use in academic areas.
In other areas, the bill tempers many of the earlier proposals but problems remain. Examples including the following:
· Institutions in the top 5 percent with respect to increases in tuition and fees or net price would be required to file reports with the Secretary explaining the causes and the steps they will take to address cost. Additional cost-related reporting requirements in another part of the bill were dropped. Although this represents a significant improvement from previous language, we argued against the whole set of cost-related provisions.
· The final bill also includes a modified version of a "multi-year tuition calculator" that would be created and maintained by the Secretary. In its simplest terms, the mechanism would allow students and their families to create nonbinding estimates of future tuition and fee levels based on the changes over the past three years. It is not yet clear how this will work.
· The expansive "Coburn language" on use of federal funds was modified so that the language only applies to federal HEA funds.
· Progress on "peer-to-peer" (P2P) was made. The final language requires institutions to certify that they have a "plan" in place to combat illegal file sharing, but the bill language and accompanying report language provide some institutional flexibility in terms of the elements of such a plan. There is no longer a technology mandate as in earlier versions of the bill and the overall role of the Department of Education in this issue has been significantly minimized. In addition, while the bill directs institutions to offer alternative downloading services, the language includes the qualifier "to the extent practicable," The report language for the bill may provide additional flexibility for institutions. A big concern with these provisions is that they may become the basis for further inappropriate federal intrusion in the future.
· The bill also contains language on textbooks that would place new requirements on both publishers and institutions. Institutions would be required, "to the extent practicable," to make available to the public via the Internet information about the course materials, such as International Standards Book Numbers (ISBNs), author(s), title, publisher, and copyright dates in a proactive manner.
· With respect to the broad range of new reporting and data disclosure requirements, a number of the community's recommendations were accepted, but some remain.
Although the bill continually improved throughout the legislative process, it still remains flawed in many ways. The cumulative impact of new regulations and rules on colleges and universities may not be quantifiable but will still be considerable. The stated overarching goal of this reauthorization was to reduce college costs for students. And yet, the net impact of these new unfunded mandates placed on our institutions seems to run counter to that objective. Consider the following examples:
· The final bill requires institutions to keep track of their alumni with respect to their employment and pursuit of graduate education by seeking illustrative examples. Although a formal information system is not called for, all colleges are aware of the problems regarding the tracking of alumni.
· The final bill creates duplicative requirements on colleges and universities with respect to reporting foreign gifts.
· We also know that the current federal graduation rates are flawed. Yet, the final bill calls for the disaggregation of graduation rates by student aid status.
Finally, when the House and Senate conferees met to finalize the bill late Tuesday, they adopted language that would mandate that states maintain a certain level of funding ("state maintenance of effort") for their public colleges and universities in order to remain eligible for a new program. The impact of this provision remains to be seen.
The final bill has provisions we support and those with which we have problems. Due to your tremendous involvement and assistance, we were able to improve and mitigate many of the truly unacceptable items. After the bill gets signed into law, the next step will be to work with the Department of Education and Congress to ensure that the implementation of this bill is carried out as smoothly as possible.
Again, thank you for your assistance throughout this experience.
So what does it all mean and what does higher education say about all of this? Under the unmbrella of ACE the major university associations sent this letter to the leadership of the House and Senate (http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=LettersGovt&CONTENTID=28138&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm)
Peter McPherson, NASULGC President sent out a nice overview of the compromise legislation--the good and the bad. Here it is...
After more than five years of work and for the first time since 1998, the Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization bill passed both the House and Senate today. The House adopted the measure by a vote of 380 to 49. The Senate followed suit tonight and passed it by a vote of 83 to 8. The President is expected to sign the legislation.
The bill includes provisions that will benefit students. It implements year-round Pell Grants and reauthorizes critical student aid programs, such as the Pell program, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG), Perkins Loans, Federal Work Study, Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships (LEAP), TRIO, and GEAR UP programs.
As a result of your active engagement and outreach to your representatives and senators, the final bill addresses or at least partially mitigates many of the concerns that we in the academic community had with earlier versions of the bill. These changes and improvements would not have been possible without the significant input of NASULGC members weighing in with Congress. While we saw positive changes during the legislative process, the legislation still contains some of provisions that we do not like.
Changes to bill language regarding accreditation represent a significant accomplishment for the community. The bill language would now explicitly prohibit the Secretary of Education from dictating standards for accrediting agencies to use in academic areas.
In other areas, the bill tempers many of the earlier proposals but problems remain. Examples including the following:
· Institutions in the top 5 percent with respect to increases in tuition and fees or net price would be required to file reports with the Secretary explaining the causes and the steps they will take to address cost. Additional cost-related reporting requirements in another part of the bill were dropped. Although this represents a significant improvement from previous language, we argued against the whole set of cost-related provisions.
· The final bill also includes a modified version of a "multi-year tuition calculator" that would be created and maintained by the Secretary. In its simplest terms, the mechanism would allow students and their families to create nonbinding estimates of future tuition and fee levels based on the changes over the past three years. It is not yet clear how this will work.
· The expansive "Coburn language" on use of federal funds was modified so that the language only applies to federal HEA funds.
· Progress on "peer-to-peer" (P2P) was made. The final language requires institutions to certify that they have a "plan" in place to combat illegal file sharing, but the bill language and accompanying report language provide some institutional flexibility in terms of the elements of such a plan. There is no longer a technology mandate as in earlier versions of the bill and the overall role of the Department of Education in this issue has been significantly minimized. In addition, while the bill directs institutions to offer alternative downloading services, the language includes the qualifier "to the extent practicable," The report language for the bill may provide additional flexibility for institutions. A big concern with these provisions is that they may become the basis for further inappropriate federal intrusion in the future.
· The bill also contains language on textbooks that would place new requirements on both publishers and institutions. Institutions would be required, "to the extent practicable," to make available to the public via the Internet information about the course materials, such as International Standards Book Numbers (ISBNs), author(s), title, publisher, and copyright dates in a proactive manner.
· With respect to the broad range of new reporting and data disclosure requirements, a number of the community's recommendations were accepted, but some remain.
Although the bill continually improved throughout the legislative process, it still remains flawed in many ways. The cumulative impact of new regulations and rules on colleges and universities may not be quantifiable but will still be considerable. The stated overarching goal of this reauthorization was to reduce college costs for students. And yet, the net impact of these new unfunded mandates placed on our institutions seems to run counter to that objective. Consider the following examples:
· The final bill requires institutions to keep track of their alumni with respect to their employment and pursuit of graduate education by seeking illustrative examples. Although a formal information system is not called for, all colleges are aware of the problems regarding the tracking of alumni.
· The final bill creates duplicative requirements on colleges and universities with respect to reporting foreign gifts.
· We also know that the current federal graduation rates are flawed. Yet, the final bill calls for the disaggregation of graduation rates by student aid status.
Finally, when the House and Senate conferees met to finalize the bill late Tuesday, they adopted language that would mandate that states maintain a certain level of funding ("state maintenance of effort") for their public colleges and universities in order to remain eligible for a new program. The impact of this provision remains to be seen.
The final bill has provisions we support and those with which we have problems. Due to your tremendous involvement and assistance, we were able to improve and mitigate many of the truly unacceptable items. After the bill gets signed into law, the next step will be to work with the Department of Education and Congress to ensure that the implementation of this bill is carried out as smoothly as possible.
Again, thank you for your assistance throughout this experience.
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