Education and other nondefense discretionary (NDD) groups released a report Tuesday titled Faces of Austerity: How Budget Cuts Have Made Us Sicker, Poorer, and Less Secure. The report highlights the ongoing negative impact of sequestration and details the effects the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) has had on NDD programs throughout the country. The release was part of a concerted effort between NDD advocacy groups, including the Committee for Education Funding (CEF), which have spearheaded efforts to repeal sequestration. As a member of CEF, the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) has been wholly supportive of these efforts and continues to oppose sequester cuts which have adversely affected many CTE programs and students throughout the country.
The budget conference committee, described in more detail here, met on Wednesday where co-Chairman of the committee Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) noted, ““The hard part is figuring out where we agree.†NASDCTEc remains hopeful that Congress will act to reverse these harmful austerity measures and will continue to track the progress of these negotiations which have wider implications it on the CTE community. Meanwhile, check out NDD United’s “Sequester Toolkit†which provides a unique opportunity to make your voice heard in this ongoing debate.
Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative
Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) recently announced Manufacturing Jobs for America, a legislative initiative centered around 40 bills proposed by over twenty Senators. The bills all seek to revive manufacturing and STEM fields in the United States. This comes at an important time when workers earn 22 percent more in annual pay and benefits than the average worker and provide a 34 percent return on investment for every dollar spent according to the National Association of Manufacturers. Some of the bills included in the initiative would directly support CTE programs and STEM education. For instance, Senator Jeff Merkley’s (D-OR) BUILD Career and Technical Education Act (S. 1293) would create a two year grant program of $20 million to support CTE education and exploration programs in middle schools and high schools.
The America Works Act (S. 453), cosponsored by a number of Senators, would encourage existing federal investments in education and workforce development to give priority consideration to programs that lead to a nationally portable, industry-recognized credential or certificate. These bills, among many others included in the initiative, represent a bipartisan Congressional recognition of the important impact manufacturing has on the national economy. CTE programs throughout the United States consistently prepare students for this dynamic industry and have become a natural juncture between education and the workforce. Please check our blog for updates on the progress of these bills.
Department Releases Stricter Gainful Employment Rules Proposal
As we shared last week, the Department of Education has been pursuing stricter “gainful employment†accountability requirements for vocational programs at for-profit institutions and community colleges across the country. A negotiated rule making committee was established in an effort to bring representatives from for-profits institutions, community colleges, and other relevant stakeholders to the table and come to a consensus on a new set of rules. In September the Department released a proposed set of rules which were based on two measures of debt-to –earnings ratios for graduates. This measure would have compared a graduate’s earnings after program completion (both annual and discretionary) to their annual amount of student loan payments. These set of rules garnered criticism from for-profits for being overly burdensome and from consumer advocates who argued they did not do enough to address programs with high dropout rates.
Late last week, the Department released a new proposal which goes far beyond their initial September pitch. In an effort to address the perceived loophole for programs with high rates of non-completion, the new draft regulatory language introduces two additional accountability measures— a program cohort default rate (pCDR) and a loan portfolio repayment rate. If a program has a 40 percent cohort default rate in one year or 30 percent over three the program would lose eligibility immediately. In addition to this, the loan portfolio repayment rate would be calculated through a comparison between the total principal owed for all loans taken out for a program by the end of the year to the principal amount at the beginning of the year. A more in depth analysis and side-by-side comparison of the two proposals can be found here. It is important to note that the committee’s guidance is non-binding and the Department does have the ability to move forward with new regulations regardless of a final consensus among the negotiators.
Please check back for updates and more on our blog as the talks continue.
Steve Voytek, Government Relations AssociateÂ