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Posted by Jonathan Nurse on October 14, 2009 at 10:45 am 

Yesterday, 10/13/09, the Senate Finance Committee approved a health reform package on a largely party-line vote of 14-9, with only Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) crossing the partisan divide. The vote in Senate Finance was the last of the five House/Senate committee (3 House committees, 2 Senate Committees) votes before consideration by the chambers.  Leadership and select members of the committees of jurisdiction will need to work together to merge bills that have been produced. In the Senate, the reform package will need to clear 60 votes to avoid a filibuster, while in the House only a simple majority is needed. At present, a public insurance option appears to be the major point of contention between the more conservative version of reform produced by the Senate Fiance Committee  and legislation advanced by the Senate HELP Committee and the House. After bills pass the Senate and House, differences will again need to be worked out between the chambers so that a single bill can be sent to the President.

Passage of health care reform may be linked to the student aid overhaul that was approved in the House over the summer. If Senate Democrats are unable to pull together the 60 votes necessary to pass health care reform, they may tie the legislation to the student aid bill in the form of a budget reconciliation package that would only require a simple majority to pass. As a result, the Senate companion to the House (H.R. 3221) student aid bill is currently awaiting further developments on the health care reform front. The University of Washington, and much of the higher education advocacy community, is using the extra time allotted for the student aid bill to seek some improvements in the legislation.

Posted by Christy Gullion on August 21, 2009 at 9:32 am 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Department of Education (ED) Secretary Arne Duncan joined with Dr. Beth Bell, Deputy Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to announce new guidance for Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) to plan for and respond to the upcoming flu season.

The guidance crafted by the scientists and doctors at the CDC is designed to help colleges and universities start planning and acting now for the impact that seasonal and 2009 H1N1 influenza could have this fall and winter on their students and faculty members, as well as other university employees.  

Government officials are especially concerned about the impact of H1N1 on schools because the virus appears to disproportionately affect young people. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recently found that younger Americans, specifically those ages 6 months to 24 years, are one of the top priority groups when it comes to the new H1N1 vaccine.

HHS has created a special toolkit for administrators and students, as well some badges and widgets that can be used on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter

The new guidance suggests that the most important actions institutions can take are: to encourage and facilitate good hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes; to encourage flu vaccination for recommended groups when vaccine becomes available; and to separate sick people from well people as soon as possible.

The Secretaries and the CDC stressed the need for different institutions to tailor the strategies to their own circumstances, based on their location, student population, resources, and information from local health officials about the severity and spread of flu in their area, and encouraged them to partner with local health officials and others in their community to plan for the upcoming flu season.

For the complete H1N1 guidance for higher education institutions and the special H1N1 Higher Education, please visit http://www.flu.gov/plan/school/higheredguidance.html.

The Toolkit is available at http://www.flu.gov/plan/school/higheredtoolkit.html.

Posted by Jonathan Nurse on July 31, 2009 at 12:27 pm 

Tomorrow, Saturday August 1st, the Post-9/11 GI Bill goes into effect. It has been dubbed the most extensive educational assistance program for veterans since the original GI Bill was signed into law in 1944.  The new bill provides education benefits for servicemembers who have served on active duty for 90 or more days since Sept. 10, 2001. These benefits are tiered based on the number of days served on active duty, creating a benefit package that gives current and previously activated National Guard and Reserve members the same benefits as active duty servicemembers.

The UW Office of Federal Relations will be closely monitoring implementation of the program, as members of the WA Congressional delegation have articulated an interest in helping to address policy challenges in this area -as they arise.

Overview of the Post-9/11 GI Bill

Posted by Jonathan Nurse on July 30, 2009 at 9:39 am 

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will participate in a public webinar on August 7th at 2pm. Secretary Duncan will discuss the Obama higher education agenda and take questions from campus leaders. Those interested in joining the webinar can click here for registration information.

Posted by Jonathan Nurse on July 22, 2009 at 10:34 am 

Yesterday, the House Education and Labor Committee passed HR 3221, Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009, which was introduced last week. The legislation eliminates the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program and utilizes the $87 billion saved to fund increased Pell grant levels for students (indexed to inflation plus 1%, but subject to appropriations), as well as a number of other K-12/community college/ 4 year higher education programs. A provision of the legislation, strongly opposed by the higher education community, to eliminate the graduate and professional student loan subsify was stripped from the legislation.

The Senate is expected to consider its own version of the legislation after the August congressional recess.

Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 Summary

Posted by Jonathan Nurse on July 14, 2009 at 8:15 am 

Today, President Obama will unveil a $12 billion initiative to boost community colleges and move the US toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.  President Obama’s will include the following:

• $9 billion will go mainly for “challenge grants” awarded on a competitive basis to encourage community colleges to propose and launch innovative new programs.  Some of the $9 billion would fund programs to address the problem of students dropping out of college.
• $2.5 billion would be used as seed money to generate $10 billion in renovation and construction at community colleges.
• Another $500 million would be used to develop online courses and materials to improve student learning, including artificial intelligence tutoring and multimedia courses.

President Obama’s Statement and Fact Sheet

Posted by Jonathan Nurse on June 26, 2009 at 1:06 pm 

**The following press release was made available by the Department of Education on June 24th**

The Obama Administration today announced a shorter, simpler, and more user friendly Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that will make it easier to apply for college financial aid. The changes—some of which are already in place while others will be phased in over the next few months—are designed to increase postsecondary enrollment, particularly among low- and middle-income students.

“President Obama has challenged the nation to once again have the highest percentage of college graduates in the world,” said Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education. “To do that, we need to make the college-going process easier and more convenient, and to send a clear message to young people as well as adults that college is within their reach. Simplifying the financial aid process is an important step toward reaching that goal.” Read more

Posted by Jonathan Nurse on June 22, 2009 at 11:37 am 

The memorandum below was released today by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU).

To:          APLU Presidents and Chancellors
Cc:          All APLU Councils and Commissions
From:      Peter McPherson, President
Date:       June 22, 2009
Re:          Goal of 55% of young adults obtaining a college degree by 2025

Saturday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal contained an op-ed which I wrote with David Shulenburger.  In the essay we proposed the goal of having 55% of people in the U.S. between the ages 25 and 34 earn a college degree by 2025.  The op-ed can be found at: Yes, We Can Expand Access to Higher Ed.

Attached is the draft paper on which the op-ed is based.  A news release and link are also available on our website.  The draft paper was circulated to you earlier and discussed at the APLU Board and Presidents Council meetings a few weeks ago.

David and I believe that the 55% goal discussed in the draft paper is a good one. But what we think is most important is for the academic community to discuss and start to come together on some ambitious goal.  We also hope that President Obama, at some point, will set out a refined and ambitious goal that has broad support within the academic community.

Thank you.

Posted by Maggie Mount on June 11, 2009 at 6:22 am 

[The following is a press release from the Department of Health and Human Services]

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the availability of nearly $200 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to support student loan repayments for primary care medical, dental and mental health clinicians who want to work at National Health Service Corps (NHSC) sites.

The NHSC is now accepting applications for Loan Repayment Awards funded by $200 million ARRA funds. Applications will be accepted continuously until funds are expended or September 30, 2010, whichever comes first.

The NHSC Loan Repayment Program provides $50,000 (or the outstanding balance of qualifying student loans if it is less than $50,000), tax free, to primary care medical, dental and mental health clinicians in exchange for two years of service at an approved site in a Health Professional Shortage Area. Upon completion of the service commitment, clinicians may be eligible to apply for additional support for extended service. Read more

Posted by Maggie Mount on June 9, 2009 at 6:19 am 

FOR RELEASE:

June 8, 2009 

Contact: John White, Press Secretary
(202) 401-1576

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today that school reforms should be monitored and judged by results that can be backed up by research proving their effectiveness.

Speaking at the fourth annual conference of the Institute of Education Sciences, Duncan told an audience of education researchers that supporting states’ efforts to build warehouses of data on student achievement is one of his top priorities.

“Education reform is not about sweeping mandates or grand gestures,” Duncan told the group of researchers who conduct research for IES, which is an independent section of the Education Department. “It’s about systematically examining and learning, building on what we’ve done right, and scrapping what hasn’t worked for kids.”

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, states must make assurances that they are making progress in four key areas of school reform:

• Adopting rigorous standards that prepare students for success in college and the workforce;
• Recruiting and retaining effective teachers, especially in classrooms where they’re needed most;
• Turning around low-performing schools; and
• Building data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

States must report their progress toward completing these assurances in their applications to receive money under the $48.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. The Department of Education will evaluate states’ success in meeting the four assurances when considering states’ applications for competitive grants under the $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund.

Duncan told the researchers today that the data systems should inform education policies that will improve practices. He urged them to work on improving accountability models based on the growth of student test scores and developing fair models of compensating teachers and other school staff based on the achievement of their students. Ultimately, he added, the data should be used to ensure that students are on track to graduation and success in college.

“Hopefully some day we can track kids from pre-school to high-school and from high school to college and college to career,” Duncan said. “Hopefully we can track good kids to good teachers and good teachers to good colleges of education.”

Duncan’s speech is the first in a series over four weeks in which the secretary will detail the Department of Education’s policies on each of the four assurances.

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