I’m off to Washington DC later this week to meet with staff to our congressional delegation about two critical issues
facing the UW and other higher education institutions in the United States.
First, the House version of the Higher Education Reauthorization Act known as “PROSPER” is slowly working its way to the floor of the chamber, although as of today there are still not enough votes to pass the measure. Authored by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) with little input from the broader higher education community, the measure would make higher education more expensive for millions of students and families by eliminating in-school interest subsidies for undergraduates, the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, and loan forgiveness and other benefits currently available in federal student loan programs. Graduate students would also be hit hard by the measure by limiting federal loans forcing them to borrow at higher costs and fewer protections in the private market.
The UW’s letter of concerns with the PROSPER act can be found here.
The other issue on our advocacy radar screen in the nation’s capital are the increasing attacks on international students, particularly those coming from China. While we share everyone’s interest in insuring our nation’s national and economic security, we must ensure that any changes to our visa system don’t negatively impact our ability to continue research and develop cures and technologies that drive our economy.
Over the past few weeks, a number of proposals have been floated in the administration as well as Congress that would place severe limits on how long students from China could study in the U.S. as well as making it harder to be granted a visa in the first place. We believe that student-visa policies for Chinese citizens to protect against security concerns should be much more narrowly tailored to ensure they don’t needlessly deter the brightest students from studying in our nation’s top research universities.
For more up to date information on these and other critical federal issues, make sure you check the Federal Relations Blog on a regularly basis.