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Higher Education Act

The Higher Education Act (HEA) is a federal law that governs the administration of federal higher education programs. Its purpose is to strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students in postsecondary and higher education.

First passed in 1965 to ensure that every individual has access to higher education, regardless of income or zip code, the HEA governs student-aid programs, federal aid to colleges, and oversight of teacher preparation programs. It is generally scheduled for reauthorization by Congress every five years to encourage growth and change.

The HEA has been reauthorized in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2008. Current authorization for the programs in the Higher Education Act expired at the end of 2013, but has been extended while Congress prepares changes and amendments.
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Latest Actions

Efforts to update the Higher Education Act stalled as the COVID-19 pandemic put Congressional discussions on hold. Prior to the outbreak, lawmakers were reportedly close to reaching a deal after years of failure. However, there is hope that negotiations will eventually resume in the 117th Congress.

HEA in the 116th Congress

  • Senate Action

    U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) in September 2019 introduced a piecemeal approach to update the Higher Education Act in the 116th Congress (2019-2020). The Student Aid Improvement Act, S. 2557, included eight bipartisan bills to streamline the Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA), simplify financial aid award letters, expand Pell Grant eligibility for students in prisons and allow Pell to be used for short-term programs, among other changes. The proposal followed months of stalled efforts to reach a bipartisan deal for a comprehensive HEA reauthorization.

    SENATE PRESS RELEASE   BILL TEXT

  • House Action

    Democrats on the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee in October 2019 unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the federal higher education law, aiming to cut the cost of college and increase access to college for low-income and minority students. The College Affordability Act included provisions that would:

    • Include the Reverse Transfer Efficiency Act, which AACRAO strongly supports and has advocated for over the past several years
    • Create a national tuition-free community college through a federal-state partnership model where the federal government contributes a per student amount at least 75 percent of the average resident tuition for public community colleges and states contribute 25 percent
    • Increase the maximum Pell Grant award by $500 and permanently index the award to inflation
    • Simplify FAFSA, including an automatic zero EFC for recipients of means-tested benefits
    • Create the Federal Direct Perkins Loan Program to provide an additional source of borrowing for undergraduates and graduates
    • Allow Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and certain other undocumented students access to federal student aid
    • Repeal the federal "student unit record" ban and require the Education Department to develop a system that uses student-level data to evaluate postsecondary outcomes
    • Change the 90/10 rule ratio (the percentage cap of Title IV aid an institution may receive) to 85/15 and expand it to include all educational programs
    • Require the Education Department to establish a Borrower Defense to Repayment process to discharge the federal loans of students who were defrauded by their colleges
    • Require the Education Department to establish a compliance standard that includes a debt-to-earnings threshold for training programs that are statutorily required to lead to gainful employment
    • Prohibit the Education Department from issuing or enforcing the proposed Title IX rules that the Trump administration published in November 2018, among other things.
     

    The College Affordability Act shared some key provisions with the Senate's package of bipartisan bills. Both proposals aimed to streamline FAFSA, simplify financial aid award letters, and expand Pell eligibility for incarcerated students and short-term programs—although the House bill excluded for-profit colleges.

    However, the House measure did not gain any traction in the 116th Congress's Republican-controlled Senate.

    HOUSE PRESS RELEASE BILL TEXT OVERVIEW OF COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY ACT

     

UPDATES

More Troubles for Gainful Employment Rule

Dec 6, 2018, 11:38 AM
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Summary : Education IG warned against repealing regulation without other accountability standards in place. Meanwhile, federal agencies feud over gainful employment data.
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The U.S. Education Department's inspector general warned the Trump administration in a semiannual report to Congress earlier this year against the agency's proposal to eliminate the gainful employment rule without other accountability standards in place.

Inspector General Kathleen Tighe, who retired from the department as of November 30, also warned House and Senate education committee leaders earlier this year against eliminating the rule in an overhaul of the Higher Education Act, reported Inside Higher Ed. In the new report, Tighe said the for-profit college sector "continues to be a high-risk area for the department,"  adding that it needs "particular accountability."

"OIG resources devoted to postsecondary school investigations continue to be disproportionately devoted to fraud and abuse in the proprietary sector," she wrote. "The sector also represents a disproportionate share of student loan defaults."


The report also found that the Education Department failed to meet targets to reduce improper payments through the Pell Grant program and that the department has not shown that it only recognizes accreditors that meet federal standards.

The agency announced plans in August to rescind the Obama-era gainful employment rule, which targets for-profit colleges over concerns about fraud and abuse in the industry. The controversial regulation, originally issued in 2011, was overturned in 2012 by a federal judge, prompting a revision of the rule that was stalled last year by the Trump administration. In place of the rule, the department proposed to hold institutions accountable solely by publishing information about student debt burdens, loan repayment and other data on the College Scorecard website.

The Trump administration, however, missed the deadline to finalize its proposal to repeal the gainful employment rules this year. Thus, pushing the implementation date back to July 2020 at the earliest. Meanwhile, an inter-agency dispute over data-sharing has already effectively killed the regulation, according to Politico. Agency officials confirmed they remain unable to produce the data needed to gauge the performance of colleges under the rule. The Social Security Administration, which must provide the earnings data, will not agree to renew an information-sharing agreement with the Education Department that expired in May.


Related Links

Inside Higher Ed

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/12/04/inspector-general-faults-education-department

Politico

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2018/12/05/data-dispute-effectively-kills-gainful-rule-442906

Michelle Mott
Categories :
  • Accreditation
  • Advocacy
  • Higher Education Act
Tags :
  • education department
  • Federal Regulations
  • Federal relations
  • for-profit colleges
  • gainful employment
  • pell grant
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