Skip to content
News and updates

Category: College Costs

Foxx to be Chair of House Education and Workforce Cmte, Trump’s Ed Landing Team

Posted on

With approval of the full Republican conference, the House Republican Steering Committee has selected Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) as the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in the 115th Congress.  She grew up in Appalachia without power and running water and began working as a weaver at age 12 to help support her family. These experiences convinced her that it’s an individual’s hard work, and not federal programs, that lead to success.

As the 73-year-old GOP lawmaker and former community college president, Foxx has been a staunch critic of the Obama Administation’s Department of Education efforts. 

She is a strong supporter of school choice and supports the president-elect’s $20 billion school choice plan emphasizing vouchers. Specifically, she wants to examine the billions doled out annually under Title 1 — a Great Society program that boosts funding to schools catering to poor students. The money is now considered a possible funding source for Trump’s school choice plan. Other items on her agenda: 

  • reexamine the role of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which conservatives revile for its focus on issues such as campus sexual assault and bathroom access for transgender students;

  • reverse a Democratic Congress’ decision to have the Education Department, not banks, issue student loans; and 

  • reverse regulations targeting for-profit colleges.

—

Mike Pence’s former general counsel has joined the landing team at the Education Department. Attorney Thomas Wheeler was named to the team Thursday. He served as general counsel for Pence during his time as Indiana governor, according to a 2013 press release from the Republican National Lawyers Association that announced him as a member of its board of governors. Wheeler also has extensive experience representing schools on legal issues, including civil rights-related cases, according to the web site for his law firm in Indianapolis, Frost Brown Todd, LLC.

DeVry Commits to 85/15 Revenue Threshold

Posted on

Today, one of the nation’s largest purveyors of for-profit higher education, the DeVry Education Group, made a commitment to limit how much revenue it receives from federal student aid to 85 percent. Federal law stipulates that no more than 90 percent of revenue originate from federal aid. The move is broadly viewed as a response to broad criticisms of the for-profit education industry.

Eager to know more? Check out coverage from the Washington Post here.

GOP Unveils Higher Ed Party Platform

Posted on

Monday kicked off the Republican National Convention. One of the first orders of business approving a 58-page party platform, which takes a stance on an array of issues that are important to higher education, including: campus sexual assault, transgender student issues, student loans, college accreditation, for-profit education, and campus protests and student activism. More information on the particulars can be found here.

House Committee Moves Forward with Labor-H

Posted on

The House Appropriations subcommittee marked up the FY 2017 Labor-H appropriations measure today. The legislation includes funding for programs within the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and other related agencies. No report language has been released, so details of the bill will likely remain unclear until full committee consideration next week.

Full committee markup of the bill is scheduled for Wednesday, July 13, at 10:00 a.m. EDT in 2359 Rayburn House Office Building.

The measure would increase funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to $33.3 billion, an increase of $1.25 billion above the FY16 level, but does not include the Senate bill’s funding to restore the year-round Pell Grant. The bill includes a provision to prohibit the Department of Labor from implementing its new overtime rule.

Highlights of accounts of note include:

NIH 

The $33.3 billion in NIH funding includes $165 million for the National Children’s Study, $511.5 million for Clinical and Translational Sciences Awards, and $333.3 million for Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) programs. Other details include:

  • $1.26 billion, a $350 million increase, for the Alzheimer’s disease research initiative;
  • $195 million, a $45 million increase, for the Brain Research through Application of Innovative Neuro-technologies (BRAIN) initiative; and
  • $300 million for the Precision Medicine Initiative.

The bill also maintains the salary cap on external NIH grants at Executive Level II of the Federal Executive pay scale.

Higher Education

The Pell Grant maximum award would be increased to $5,935 through a combination of discretionary and mandatory funds, which is the same as the Administration’s request and the Senate bill. The bill also would prohibit the Department of Education from moving ahead on regulations on teacher preparation, defining “gainful employment” and “credit hour,” and how states license institutions of higher education.

The Senate committee-passed bill funds NIH at $34 billion, a $2 billion increase, and uses part of the Pell Grant program surplus to restore the year-round Pell Grant.

Federal Relations will continue to update as we learn more details.

Labor-HHS-Ed Passes Senate Appropriations

Posted on

This week the Senate Committee on Appropriations took action on the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations measure.  Most notably, the measure provides a $2 billion bump for the National Institutes of Health and restores year-round Pell Grants. 

National Institutes of Health is funded at $34 billion in the proposal, a 6.3% increase above FY2016. This includes:

  • $300 million for the Precision Medicine Initiative, an increase of $100 million;
  • $1.39 billion for Alzheimer’s disease research, an increase of $400 million;
  • $250 million, an increase of $100 million, for the BRAIN Initiative to map the human brain;
  • $333.4 million, an increase of $12.5 million, for the Institutional Development Award;
  • $463 million, an increase of $50 million, to Combat Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria;
  • $297.3 million for Title VII Health Professions, a 13.3 percent increase above the FY 2016 level.

Notably, the measure would restore the year-round Pell Grant, benefitting an estimated one million students. The reinstated year-round Pell program is modeled after the program included in S. 1062, the “Year-Round Pell Grant Restoration Act,” which does not have a minimum credit requirement or acceleration clause for eligibility.The bill would also raise the maximum Pell Grant award from $5,815 to $5,935. In addition, the provision would provide level funding year-over-year for Federal Work Study at $990 million, TRIO at $900 million, and GEAR UP at $323 million. Title VI International Education is funded at $67 million, which is a $5 million cut to the Fulbright Hayes program and level funding for the domestic programs.