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Category: Higher Education

House to Vote on ESRA Reauthorization

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The House is expected to consider H.R. 4366, the Strengthening Education through Research Act on Wednesday of this week. The legislation would reauthorize the Institute of Education Science, which is the research arm of the Department of Education.

Reauthorizing legislation of research agencies is typically noncontroversial, and surprisingly, that spirit has held true this year with the IES reauthorization — so far. The House is expected to pass the legislation as a Suspension bill, which requires 2/3rd of the House in the positive for the bill to pass.

This measure is one of several higher education reauthorization bills the Office of Federal has been tracking.

New Report on Trends in State Funding for Higher Education

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The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a study late last week about national trends in state funding allocations to public higher educational institutions. The report explains broad national trends in cost shifting of tuition from the state to the student. Overall, after counting for inflation, forty-eight states are still spending less per student in higher education than before the recession.  Since the start of the recession, states have cut higher education funding by 23 percent per student. While states have begun to restore funding, resources are well below what they were in 2008.

Some additional take aways:

  • Simultaneously, public higher education institutions must educate more students, raising costs. In part due to the “baby boom echo” causing a surge in the 18- to 24-year-old population, enrollment in public higher education increased by about 1 million full-time equivalent students, or 10 percent, between the beginning of the recession and the 2012-13 academic year (the latest year for which there is actual data).
  • The recession also played a large role in swelling enrollment numbers, particularly at community colleges, reflecting high school graduates choosing college over dim employment prospects in the job market and older workers entering classrooms in order to retool and gain new skills.
  • The cost shift from states to students has happened over a period when absorbing additional expenses has been difficult for many families because their incomes have been stagnant or declining. Tuition was up 26.1 percent between the 2007-08 and 2012-13 school years, while real median income was down roughly 8.3 percent over the same time period

The full report is here.

 

White House Issues First Report on Campus Sexual Assault

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This morning, the White House issued its first report to address and work to end sexual assault on campuses. This report — and the release of NotAlone.gov, a clearinghouse for federal information on campus sexual assault — is the first in what will be a series of action steps to address campus sexual assault.

Earlier this year, the President created the Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault, which is co-chaired by Vice President Joe Biden and the White House Council on Women and Girls. Today, the Task Force release a report of planned first action steps and recommendations.  This first report establishes broad initial goals including: identifying the scope of the problem on college campuses; help preventing campus sexual assault; help schools respond effectively when a student is assaulted; and improve, and make more transparent, the federal government’s enforcement efforts.

Over a year ago, the University of Washington recognized campus sexual assault as a significant national issue and formed the UW Task Force on Sexual Assault and Prevention. President Young reconfirmed the university’s commitment to do all the institution can to prevent and properly respond to every individual report of equal assault.

In October 2013, UW issued a final report with 18 recommendations and action items to change campus culture and create a safer and more compassionate and responsive response to UW campus sexual assault, through expanding UW’s SARIS, for example.

UW continues to work toward implementing all of these recommendations and as the discussion moves forward at the federal level, the Office of Federal Relations will continue to monitor and update the community on this issue.

Ryan Reveals House FY15 Budget

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House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan unveiled the House FY15 Budget today. The measure proposes to cut $5.1 trillion over a decade in a bid to erase the federal deficit, while calling once again for dramatic changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and the tax code.

The House proposal would significantly reduce federal support for college access. The Ryan Budget would  eliminate the interest subsidy for all subsidized undergraduate student loans — based on a CBO estimate last year,that would increase loan costs to students by some $50 billion over ten years. The proposed budget would eliminate all mandatory funding for Pell, shifting it totally to discretionary funding, while freezing the maximum Pell grant for the next decade. That essentially means that $870 in the maximum grant would have to be funded by increased discretionary funds or the maximum be cut from $5,730 to $4,860.

Additionally, the Ryan Budget proposes to cut Non Discretionary Defense (NDD) funding by $761 billion below the current caps, and more than doubles down on the sequester cuts by shifting all of the cuts scheduled for defense starting in FY16 to NDD funding. In FY 16, the NDD cap would be cut from $492 billion to $450 billion, an 8.5% cut.  By the end of the ten year window, NDD would be cut by 22%.

The nearly 100-page blueprint is likely be the last formal budget proposal from Ryan, the Republican chairman of the Budget Committee who wants to move to the more powerful Ways and Means Committee next year.

The House Budget Committee is expected to mark up the legislation Wednesday in a session expected to last well into the night.

The Office of Federal Affairs is continuing to review the legislation and will provide updates as the measure changes in the legislative process.

 

In-State Tuition for Veterans Bill Passes House

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Tonight, the House has considered and passed that would require in-state tuition for certain veterans (Section 4 of HR.357, the GI Bill Tuition Fairness Act as amended). The bill was brought up under an expedited process referred to as “Suspension of the Rules.” Bills brought up in this manner are generally bipartisan, non-controversial measures that are expected to pass easily.

In brief, the bill would require all public higher education institutions to charge in-state tuition to a veteran residing in the state of that institution, even if that veteran is officially a resident of another state. This requirement would remain in place for three years after the person is discharged from the military, assuming he or she continues to reside in the state where the institution is located. The in-state tuition policy would apply beginning in July 2016 and would only cover the veteran — not their dependents using GI Bill benefits.  It appears that a consequence of this bill would be that public higher education institutions would no longer qualify for the out-of-state federal benefit of the GI Bill Yellow Ribbon Program since the veterans/students involved here would no longer be considered out-of state.

A much broader bill was previously under consideration that would have required lifetime in-state tuition to veterans and their dependents regardless of their actual state residency.

Nearly 30 states have already passed or are considering enacting legislation to provide in-state residency waivers to veterans at their public colleges and universities. Washington state is currently considering similar legislation that would allow instate tuition for one year. Other states, several individual campuses and university systems offer in-state waivers to their veteran student populations.

The measure passed by a vote of 390-0.

The Office of Federal Relations will continue to track this issue and continue to provide updates as the legislation progresses.