HEA Bill Finally Clears Committee

Posted on October 31, 2019

The House Education and Labor Committee returned this morning for a third day of markup to finally approve the bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA). It was reported out by a vote of 28 to 22. Approximately five dozen amendments were considered during the consideration of the legislation.

The committee Democrats issued the following press release after the committee passage. Not surprisingly, the committee Republicans had a different take on the HEA measure.

The texts of the amendments offered during the markup are available here.

Even though the bill has emerged from committee, if and when it moves to the floor for consideration by the full House remains uncertain.

House Committee Still Working on HEA

Posted on October 30, 2019

Having lasted two days so far, the House Education and Labor Committee is still in the process of marking up the Democratic version of a bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA). The committee is currently in recess, allowing members to vote on bills being considered on the floor.

By the time the session concludes, the committee will have entertained approximately 60 amendments.

We will follow up with further details after the conclusion of the markup.

House Ed & Labor Marks Up HEA

Posted on October 29, 2019October 29, 2019

The House Education and Labor Committee is scheduled to mark up this morning the HEA reauthorization legislation that was introduced approximately two weeks ago. Yesterday, an amendment to the bill that would essentially serve as the substitute to the original at the markup session was filed.

We expect the markup to be fairly partisan, given the nature of the bill. We will provide further updates.

House Democrats Introduce HEA Legislation

Posted on October 21, 2019

As expected, the House Democrats introduced last week their version of the legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA). The 1,100-page College Affordability Act is likely to be marked up by the Education and Labor Committee next week. Unlike the Senate bill that was introduced in late September by HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the House legislation represents a comprehensive look at the underlying HEA.

The legislation covers a wide-range of issues in the HEA, from an increase of $500 in the Pell Grant maximum award to proposed changes in how outcome standards are determined for accreditation purposes and topics in between, such as the elimination of loan repayment programs currently in place and the creation of two new loan repayment options for new loans.

Read more about the legislation here. We will provide further updates.

With 11 Days To Go…

Posted on September 20, 2019

Remember the two-year spending agreement that was reached earlier this summer that increased the budget caps for both FY2020 and FY2021? Well, that seems like a distant memory at this point. When the agreement was reached, there were hopes that the FY2020 appropriations process would turn into a relatively smooth one. Fast forward to today and we are now 11 days away from the start of FY2020 and none of the 12 spending bills have been signed into law.

To try to prevent another shutdown like the one that marked the beginning of FY2019, the House took up and passed yesterday a continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government funded through November 21. The Senate is expected to take it up next week. There was even uncertainty about the fate of the CR, with the biggest holdup being House Democratic appropriations leadership’s misgivings about adding funds for subsidies to farmers impacted by the tariff fight with China. Ultimately, enough of the concerns were addressed for floor action and passage.

In the Senate, with the hopes of a quick appropriations process dashed, appropriators are making progress where they can. The full Appropriations Committee cleared three bills yesterday in a bipartisan manner: Agriculture, Transportation-Housing, and Financial Services- General Government. However, significant hurdles remain. There still are differences between the two sides about the Administration’s attempts to move funds from other bills to build a wall on the Southern border. Related to the wall push is the Democrats’ unhappiness about the “302(b)” allocations to the subcommittees, especially to the Labor-HHS subcommittee for its bill. While the Labor-HHS-Education bill and the accompanying report have finally been released, the legislation has not yet moved due to Democratic objections on funding and Republican protests related to abortion policy.

The current version of the Senate Labor-HHS-Education bill would increase funding for NIH by $3 billion. In addition, while the legislation would increase the Pell Grant maximum to $6,330, it would level fund the majority of the other student financial aid and higher education programs of most interest, including:

SEOG: $840 million
Federal Work Study: $1.1 billion
TRIO: $1.06 billion
GEAR-UP: $360 million
GAANN: $23 million
Institute for Education Sciences (IES): $615 million
Title VI International Education programs: $72 million

The bill would also provide $100 million to federal student loan borrowers who would otherwise be eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program except for the fact that they unknowingly made payments to ineligible repayment plans. This amount would be combined with unobligated balances for similar efforts from prior years.

Stay tuned for further updates.