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Posts Tagged ‘Higher Education Act’

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Legislative Update: Congress Passes Last-Minute Funding Extension

Monday, October 2nd, 2023

After weeks of fruitless negotiations on Capitol Hill the last few months regarding a pathway forward on full-year federal fiscal year 2024 (FY24) appropriations, lawmakers emerged with a temporary deal to avert an expected government shutdown this past weekend. Elsewhere, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) recently published anticipated postsecondary regulations. 

Lawmakers Narrowly Avert Government Shutdown

In a surprising turn of events Saturday morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced a 45-day legislative extension of federal funding to provide Congress more time to negotiate a pathway forward on longer-term appropriations legislation. For the last few months, Speaker McCarthy and his leadership team have repeatedly indicated that they would not allow the House to consider such an extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR), without significant spending and policy concessions demanded by conservative factions within the House Republican caucus. However, Speaker McCarthy abruptly set these demands aside Saturday morning, several hours before a government shutdown was set to begin, and introduced a CR that would simply extend current FY23 funding for federal programs and operations for the next 45 days. 

This measure was subsequently advanced by the full House of Representatives on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, 335-91. Following a contentious debate in the House, the bill was quickly sent to the Senate, where it was advanced by a margin of 88-9, before being sent to President Biden and signed into law. 

In the short term, this legislation prevents a government shutdown and will provide more time for lawmakers to continue to negotiate a pathway forward on full-year FY24 funding. However, with 90 House Republicans voting no on the measure, and with concessions Speaker McCarthy was forced to give earlier this year to conservative lawmakers in his party, this group of lawmakers may seek to force a vote to remove McCarthy from this leadership role as these efforts continue to get underway. Equally as important, Democrats’ and Republicans’ respective visions for FY24 funding still remain significantly far apart– despite the passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) which established, in part, a framework intended to facilitate the passage of a full-year FY24 funding measure this year. 

Consensus on FY24 funding is likely to prove contentious in the weeks ahead. As these negotiations progress, Advance CTE will continue to advocate for the passage of full-year FY24 appropriations legislation, including a strengthened investment in CTE via the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act’s (Perkins V) basic state grant program as proposed by the Senate earlier this year. 

ED Finalizes Gainful Employment Rule

Earlier this year, ED proposed a new iteration of gainful employment (GE) rules– regulations that apply to certain postsecondary programs and are intended to ensure that learners are able to pay back federal financial aid obligations. Advance CTE and partners submitted comments to the department during this time and encouraged the agency to consider alternative ways to measure learners’ earnings as well as other suggestions to improve the proposal. Following this comment period, which attracted more than 7,500 responses from the public, ED published a preview of its final GE rule which will be formally published in the Federal Register on October 10. 

The final rule mirrors this earlier proposal closely and would apply to postsecondary career education programs that are otherwise eligible for aid under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA). The rule includes a debt-to-earnings measure that would compare learners’ debt burdens to their total and discretionary income. In addition, the final rule includes a high school earnings measure which would compare the earnings of those that complete a program with the median earnings of a high school graduate in their state. If a program fails on the same measure twice within a three-year period, it would lose eligibility to receive Title IV funding. 

In addition, the rulemaking also includes a new financial value transparency framework (FVT). This component of the rules package is intended to provide learners and families with greater information and insights into the value proposition of enrolling in a postsecondary program prior to enrollment. The FVT would proactively disclose information related to program costs and potential return on investment with learners prior to receiving federal financial aid. This is intended to prevent learners from enrolling in a program that has the potential to leave them with unaffordable debt obligations. The FVT would also require learners to proactively affirm that they understand these risks prior to enrolling and using federal financial aid.

The final GE rules are set to go into effect July 1, 2024. The FVT requires the collection of new student outcomes information over the next two years and is expected to come into full effect mid-2026. However, as with previous ED regulatory efforts on this issue, there is a strong possibility that litigation may delay the implementation of one or both components of this rules package in the future. Advance CTE is continuing to analyze this proposal for wider implications for the CTE community and will be closely monitoring its implementation in the coming months. Additional information related to this rulemaking can be found in this factsheet. 

Steve Voytek, Policy Advisor 

By Layla Alagic in Public Policy
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Legislative Update: ED Proposes New Gainful Employment Rule While Debt Limit Impasse Continues

Friday, May 19th, 2023

This week top congressional leaders continued to try and find consensus on the need to raise the nation’s statutory borrowing authority, while lawmakers in the House examined recent congressional budget requests from the Biden administration for the U.S. Department of Education (ED). Elsewhere, ED has proposed new rules for certain postsecondary programs and new priorities for competitive grants for Career Technical Education (CTE). 

Debt Limit Deadline Nears 

For the last few weeks, congressional leaders and President Biden have been intensely debating whether and how to raise the nation’s statutory borrowing authority, known informally as the debt limit or debt ceiling. Current forecasts estimate that the federal government will breach this borrowing authority—which is intended to pay for debts Congress has already incurred—in early June. Failure to raise the debt limit would have catastrophic consequences for the nation’s economy. This week, lawmakers continued to meet and negotiate but have made little progress.

More recently, these discussions have been limited to senior staff representing the Biden administration and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy—a development that has been widely viewed to mean that these discussions are narrowing a potential set of issues that could compose a compromise. These issues reportedly include a number of Republican priorities including permitting reform, work requirements for social safety net programs and, of particular note for the CTE community, potential caps on the overall size of the federal budget for the next several years. As shared previously, House Republicans are insisting on concessions from Democrats on these topics in exchange for raising the debt limit. As of this writing, these discussions remain extremely fluid.

Advance CTE is closely monitoring this situation and related developments, particularly for the potential impacts it may have on CTE and the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act as amended by the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V). 

Secretary Cardona Testifies in the House

On Tuesday, May 16, the House Education and Workforce Committee held a hearing examining the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) federal fiscal year 2024 (FY24) budget request and related priorities. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona testified before the panel regarding a wide range of topics including recently proposed Title IX rules, critical race theory, parent’s rights and many other hot-button education issues. While lawmakers on both sides of the aisle disagreed on many of these issues, the need to reform postsecondary financial aid policies– primarily by expanding federal Pell Grant eligibility for shorter-term, high-quality postsecondary CTE programs– was a rare area of agreement which was also echoed by Secretary Cardona. Advance CTE has also long championed legislation that would achieve this. 

During the hearing, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) highlighted a recent visit he and Secretary Cardona made to a local CTE high school noting that “. . . they are turning away hundreds of kids who would love to take advantage of the benefit of career and technical education” due to a lack of capacity and related resources. Rep. Courtney highlighted the importance of formula funding for Perkins V, which he noted the administration has proposed to increase by $43 million in FY24. Despite this encouraging aspect of the President’s budget request, ED has also requested $200 million in funding for the creation of a new competitive grant program. Advance CTE and partners have previously shared concerns regarding this proposal, which ED estimates would only serve 32 programs in total, particularly given growing demand for CTE programs across the country. An archived webcast of the hearing, including opening statements, can be found here.

ED Outlines Priorities for Perkins I&M Grants

On Monday, ED published proposed priorities for Perkins V’s Innovation and Modernization (I&M) grant program. Last year, Congress provided an additional $25 million for Perkins V’s I&M account to advance innovative approaches to delivering CTE programs. The priorities proposed by the Department include career advisement and counseling, dual and concurrent enrollment, work-based learning and industry-recognized credentials. These priorities align with ED’s wider “Career Connected High Schools” initiative, which is conceived using these same priority areas. As mentioned elsewhere, ED has been seeking an additional $200 million for this initiative in the ongoing FY24 appropriations process. ED is inviting feedback on these priorities for the next 30 days. More information can be accessed here.

ED Proposes New Gainful Employment Rule 

Earlier today, ED proposed a new and highly-anticipated “gainful employment” (GE) rule as part of a wider package of other postsecondary regulations recently negotiated by the department and other stakeholders last year. The regulations would apply to certain postsecondary career education programs and determine their eligibility for federal student financial aid from Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA) based on programs meeting certain performance standards related to graduates’ earnings and ability to pay back student loans. Earlier iterations of this rule were first proposed by the Obama administration over a decade ago and finalized in 2014 which were later rescinded by the Trump administration a few years later after a series of legal challenges. 

This newly proposed GE rule would require certain postsecondary programs to demonstrate that at least half of their graduates earn higher wages than a typical high school graduate in their state within a three-year period. The rule would also apply a debt-to-earnings ratio, similar to previous versions of GE rules, which would require a graduate’s debt to amount to no more than eight percent of a graduate’s overall earnings and no more than 20 percent of their discretionary income. Programs would be evaluated using both of these performance measures and those that fail to meet these thresholds twice within three years, would lose access to federal student aid funding derived from HEA. Based on this current timeline, ED is likely to promulgate a final GE rule by November 1, 2023, which could take effect July 1, 2024.

In addition, ED is also proposing supplementary data collections from all postsecondary institutions and programs, including those not covered by GE, to develop a new website providing learners and families with more information regarding these programs. This proposal is related to a recent request for information from ED earlier this year regarding the potential creation of a list of “low financial value” postsecondary programs. The regulatory package also includes changes to existing ability-to-benefit rules, which govern how learners without a high school diploma can qualify for federal student aid as they pursue postsecondary education. Currently, this rules package is open for public review and feedback until June 20, 2023. 

Steve Voytek, Policy Advisor 

By Jodi Langellotti in Public Policy
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College Affordability Act Released

Wednesday, October 16th, 2019

On October 15, the House Committee on Education and Labor introduced the College Affordability Act (H.R. 4674), the House Democrats’ long-awaited legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA).

Some of the major initiatives of the bill include:

Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) intends this to be a comprehensive reauthorization, in contrast to the recent “mini” HEA reauthorization proposal, The Student Aid Improvement Act, introduced by Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN).

Advance CTE staff will continue to monitor changing developments with this proposal and related legislation. Advance CTE’s full recommendations for HEA reauthorization can be found here. 

Meredith Hills, Policy Associate and Sam Dunietz, Senior Associate for Federal Policy

By admin in Legislation, Uncategorized
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Updated Advance CTE Recommendations for HEA Reauthorization

Tuesday, May 21st, 2019

As Congress consider reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), Advance CTE reviewed our HEA recommendations. Last month, we added a recommendation to lift the ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals.

From 1972 to 1994, all those incarcerated in state or federal prisons were eligible to receive Pell Grants. However, in 1994 President Bill Clinton’s Violent Crime Control Act banned access to Pell Grants for all incarcerated individuals. In 2015, President Barack Obama announced the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative– which allowed for those incarcerated to access Pell at experimental sites for the first time since 1994. In February the U.S. Department of Education approved renewal of this pilot program. There are now 67 participating colleges and universities and over 100 federal and state prisons included in this program- leading 12,000 incarcerated individuals to utilize Pell funding. While this has been positive progress, there are over 1.5 million people incarcerated- and only a small portion of those who are otherwise eligible for Pell are able to access it.

A recent report by the Vera Institute of Justice and Georgetown Law School’s Center on Poverty and Inequality found that in state prisons- which hold the majority of prisoners in this country- about 463,000 people are eligible for Pell Grants. Currently, only 50 percent of those previously incarcerated find formal work in their first year after release from prison. The report found that if 50 percent of state prisoners who are Pell eligible are able to enroll in a postsecondary program, the rate of employment for formerly incarcerated individuals in their first year after release from prison would increase by 2.1 percent.

Support for expanding Pell access has been voiced across both parties. For example, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN), HELP Committee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) and House Committee on Education & Labor Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) have all stated support. U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also mentioned an interest in lifting this ban.

Eliminating the ban on Pell in all prisons would give hundreds of thousands access to postsecondary education, and allow these learners to pursue meaningful employment after incarceration. Advance CTE recommends reinstating Pell Grants in prisons to allow all learners the opportunity for postsecondary attainment, and set them up for career success.

Advance CTE’s full recommendations for HEA reauthorization can be found here.

Meredith Hills, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
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The Outlook For Higher Education Reform in the 116th Congress

Tuesday, February 12th, 2019

Last week, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA) shared their agendas for higher education reform, providing insight into what may be in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA).

On Monday, February 4, Senator Alexander spoke about HEA reauthorization at the American Enterprise Institute. He announced three proposals for updating HEA:

1) Simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

2) Streamline the options to repay student loans

3) Create a new accountability system for colleges to report whether borrowers are able to repay loans

Senator Alexander also discussed his support for competency-based education and expanding Pell Grant eligibility to include summer programs, as well as giving currently and previously incarcerated individuals access to Pell.

There have been multiple proposals in the Senate that touch upon these three ideas and Senator Alexander plans to work with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Ranking Member of the Senate HELP Committee, and the rest of the committee to introduce one inclusive piece of legislation this spring so that the full Senate and House of Representatives are able to pass reauthorization by the new year. You can find the video, transcript and summary of Senator Alexander’s remarks here.

Later in the week, at Inside Higher Ed’s event on Higher Ed in the New Congress on Thursday, February 7, Senator Alexander underscored his three proposals. Representative Scott spoke as well, ensuring that HEA reauthorization will be an opportunity for comprehensive higher education reform. Some of the priorities for Representative Scott include:

Representative Scott reminded the audience that although increased college enrollment is important, increased completion rates are what demonstrate success. He also discussed how HEA must address the rising cost of college in its measures to make college more affordable.  

Both expressed commitment to reauthorizing HEA in a bipartisan manner.

Meredith Hills, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
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HEA in Practice: Title III HSI STEM Articulation Grant

Wednesday, January 30th, 2019

Title III of the Higher Education Act (HEA) is the main source of institutional level funding in HEA, primarily supporting minority-serving colleges. Title III authorizes the Hispanic Serving Institutions Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics and Articulation Program (HSI STEM). An institution is categorized as an HSI if at least 25 percent of the full time undergraduate students are Latino. As of the 2016-2017 school year, HSIs include 65 percent of Latino undergraduate students and 15 percent of colleges and universities across the country, and these number will continue to increase.

This piece of HEA has two goals: the first is to increase attainment of STEM degrees and the second is to create a model transfer and articulation agreement for STEM degrees between two- and four-year institutions. Appropriations for this program are mandatory through FY2019. Funding can be utilized for purposes such as:

A great example of how this has been implemented is the Laredo Community College in Texas, which developed its STEM Articulation and Summer Bridge program through the HSI STEM grant. The STEM articulation program supports learners interested in STEM in both the college enrollment process, as well as successfully navigating the two to four year transfer. This program includes a Summer Bridge component, which provides incoming college students with advisement on everything from what to expect academically to the interpersonal skills that will be required. Learners in this program graduated at twice the rate of the college’s overall graduation rate.

Meredith Hills, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
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HEA in Practice: UVM’s TRIO Upward Bound Program

Friday, January 4th, 2019

The Higher Education Act (HEA) authorizes the Federal TRIO Programs (TRIO), with the purpose of supporting learners at the secondary level in achieving a postsecondary education. TRIO encompasses six programs targeted for low-income learners, first generation college students and learners with disabilities to excel from middle school through postsecondary enrollment. One program included in TRIO is Upward Bound, which supports low-income and first generation high school students through high school graduation, college enrollment and college completion. In the fall of 2018, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance published a report that reviewed 200 Upward Bound programs across the country and came to the conclusion that such programs increase the number of colleges students applied to and led students to apply to more selective institutions.

Upward Bound has over 950 programs across the country. In Vermont, the University of Vermont’s (UVM) TRIO Upward Bound program (UVM Upward Bound) has found success. Through UVM Upward Bound, the university coordinates with Burlington High School and Winooski High School to support students in grades nine through twelve in progressing through secondary and postsecondary education. The program includes 63 students and works with the school counselors and teachers of both high schools to provide services such as college and career preparation. Additionally, the six-week summer program (held at the UVM campus) gives high school seniors the chance to plan for the college application process and write their application essays. The summer program also brings students to visit colleges outside of the state.

Recently, UVM Upward Bound was given a supplemental grant from the U.S. Department of Education to improve Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) opportunities for applicable students. In the summer of 2017, UVM joined 50 Upward Bound colleges in putting in place a three year STEM program called Teaching through Technology (T3). This new grant will further support STEM for Upward Bound students by allowing new technology to be acquired as well as hiring additional instructors.

Across Vermont, public colleges are coordinating with secondary schools through TRIO to support all learners in a pathway from secondary to postsecondary achievement.

Meredith Hills, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
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Advance CTE Recommendations for HEA Reauthorization

Thursday, December 6th, 2018

The turnover to the 116th Congress provides a renewed opportunity for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA). There is agreement across both parties that higher education is a priority area, which could lead to a bipartisan approach to advance HEA reauthorization. In fact, since 1980, HEA has only been reauthorized when control across the House of Representatives, Senate and White House is shared between parties.

Advance CTE offers recommendations for the reauthorization of HEA under the following topics:

As the new Congress considers reauthorization, the major challenges facing the economy, most notably the skills shortage, must be central to these debates. Our higher education system must be more responsive to the evolving demands of an ever more competitive global economy. Too many employers report a shortage of qualified workers, while university and college graduates burdened with tremendous debt are unable to find work related to their fields of study. This calls for a major realignment of our nation’s higher education policies.

The upcoming reauthorization process will provide Congress a critically important opportunity to achieve this vision for investing in America’s workforce by ensuring affordable and accessible postsecondary opportunities for every learner.

Meredith Hills, Policy Associate

By admin in Uncategorized
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Legislative Update: Congress Finalizes Funding Proposals for Perkins as the Obama Administration Makes CTE Scholars Announcement and Adjusts Higher Ed Agenda

Monday, June 29th, 2015

CapitolFor the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor-HHS-ED) communities, last week was busy to say the least. Congressional appropriators in both the House and the Senate marked up and ultimately approved two separate appropriations bills for the Labor-HHS-ED portion of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 federal budget—an accomplishment not seen in several years despite intense partisan disagreement over the funding levels constraining each proposal. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the Carl D. Perkins Act (Perkins) both derive funding from these funding bills which would need to be reconciled and ultimately signed into law by the President before becoming law. However, both bills propose to stay within the Budget Control Act’s (BCA) sequester caps— self-imposed overall limits on how much Congress can spend on the programs falling under this and other portions of the budget.

These sequester caps have been at the center of much partisan disagreement since 2013 when they were first triggered. Democrats would like to see these caps raised in order to make much needed investments in education and related programs while Republicans largely want to stay within the caps or offset additional investments with related cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Without changes to the underlying BCA legislation— something that the 2014 Ryan-Murray budget agreement achieved for FY’s 2014 and 2015— funding levels for the majority of programs will stagnate and be at risk of further cuts for FY 2016 and many years to come.

In light of this, the House Appropriations Committee approved their FY 2016 Labor-HHS-ED bill on a vote of 30-21. As we shared earlier, the bill would reduce ED’s discretionary budget by $2.8 billion dollars—a cut that would bring the Department’s overall discretionary budget back to FY 2004 funding levels. Final approval of this bill also gave further clarity to what lawmakers intend for the Perkins Act. While Perkins basic state grants would remain level-funded at the same amounts the program received in FY 2015, the bill would reduce Perkins’ national activities funding by $3.6 million dollars. The bill also contains a number of policy riders (both education related and otherwise) such as prohibiting ED from enforcing its recently upheld “gainful employment” regulations and its proposed college ratings system, a move that when taken together with the bill’s overall proposed funding levels virtually guarantees that the proposal will not be signed by the President.

In the Senate, the Appropriations committee moved quickly throughout the week to get a Labor-HHS-ED bill through subcommittee and to a final vote by its full membership. Approving the bill on a 16-14 vote along party lines, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s bill would cut ED’s discretionary budget by $1.36 billion. Like the House, the Senate would cut Perkins national activities by $3 million and level-fund Perkins state grants at $1.117 billion—the same amounts the program has received in FY 2014 and 2015. While these figures reflect a nearly 96 percent restoration of the FY 2013 sequester cuts imposed on Perkins, the program on the whole remains well below what it received in FY 2010 and approximately $5.4 million below pre-sequester levels.

Despite the gloomy outlook for most of the education community, the central issue in the ongoing funding debate in Congress centers on the BCA sequester caps. As lawmakers struggle to meet the needs of students and families across the country, more will need to be done to raise or eliminate these caps. Until that happens, federal investments in education, and in particular CTE, will continue to stagnate until Congress decides to act. With Congress poised to pass the necessary 12 spending bills needed to fund the government before the August recess, and with Congressional Democrats and the President making clear that they will not support the funding levels contained in these proposals, it remains unclear how this appropriations fight will play out as the end of FY 2015 on September 30th looms ever closer.

Be sure to check back here for more updates on the Congressional appropriations process and what that means for the wider CTE community.

Obama Administration Changes Direction with College Ratings Framework

Late last week the Obama Administration announced a major revision to their proposed accountability-based college ratings system originally due for release later this summer. When first announced, ED solicited public comments on the proposal and NASDCTEc, along with the Association of Career and Technical Education (ACTE), provided feedback on the feasibility of the initiative. Many stakeholder groups within the higher education community shared substantial concerns regarding the viability of the effort and questioned the appropriate role and responsibilities Ed should have in ensuring access to and affordability of postsecondary education.

In light of these comments Jamienne Studley, ED’s Deputy Under Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education, announced that the Department’s original proposal—which would have “rated” postsecondary institutions into three wide-ranging categories of low, medium, and high performing and tied federal financial aid decisions to that determination— would now be revised to be a public-facing consumer information tool, providing prospective students and their families with a information regarding postsecondary institutions in order for them to make more informed decisions when making choices about their postsecondary education.

This proposal has been a source of much partisan discomfort in Congress, particularly in the House where the most recent Labor-HHS-ED appropriations bill included additional provisions that would have prevented the Administration from implementing the system. Read the House Education and Workforce Committee’s response to the announcement here.

ED plans to have the newly reimagined system available for public use by the end of the summer. Learn more about the effort here.

This announcement comes on the heels of another major development for the Administration’s higher education agenda. Last Tuesday, the U.S. District Court of D.C. ruled that ED’s “gainful employment” regulations can be implemented as scheduled on July 1st, 2015 after several lawsuits from for-profit and private institution trade groups challenged the premise of the new rules. The regulations will require career education programs to meet specific debt-to-income ratios for graduates based on their annual and discretionary income following program exit.

This is ED’s second attempt at implementing these regulations and this latest ruling paves the way for the rules ultimate adoption later this week. Read Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s formal response applauding the court’s ruling here.

President Obama Expands Presidential Scholars Program

As we shared last week, President Obama signed Executive Order 11155—a decree that will expand the existing Presidential Scholars program to include up to 20 CTE students each year moving forward. While the details of the CTE component to the program are still being determined, beginning in the 2015-16 school year, the Chief State School Officers will nominate CTE scholars who will then be selected by the Commission on Presidential Scholars. Tomorrow, the White House will play host to another CTE-related event where additional details regarding the announcement are expected. Learn more about this exciting development here.

Odds & Ends

Steve Voytek, Government Relations Manager

By Steve Voytek in Legislation, News, Public Policy
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Midterm Elections Place Republicans in Control of Congress, Gainful Employment Regulations Finalized

Thursday, November 6th, 2014

CapitolThe long anticipated 2014 midterm elections took place on Tuesday, ushering in a wave of new Republicans into both chambers of Congress. The central question ahead of these elections rested on the balance of power in the Senate and with it full Republican control of the entire Congress. Late Tuesday night, that question was finally put to rest. As of this post, the GOP has picked up seven new seats in the Senate, with three races still in contention. In the House the results were much the same, with the Republicans swelling their majority in that Chamber to at least 243 and possibly 250— a high water mark for the Republican Party not seen since 1928.

Although a few races are still in contention, the Republican Party looks poised to add additional seats in both Chambers over the next several weeks, as the elections results continue to trickle in. Democrats who have served in both the House and the Senate on the Chambers’ respective education and appropriations committees have lost their seats which, along with the influx of new Republican lawmakers to the Capitol, will significantly change the composition of the Committees that oversee and ultimately fund the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins) along with other key education and workforce programs.

Senators Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) along with Representative Tim Bishop (D-NY), who have served on education and appropriations committees in both Chambers have all lost reelection. Two others including Senators Beigich (D-AK) and Landrieu (D-LA), are in races whose final outcome have yet to be determined.

So what does this all mean for the Career Technical Education community? First and foremost, the key Committees in both Chambers which will oversee the reauthorization of the Perkins Act— the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the House’s Education and the Workforce (HEW) Committee— will look dramatically different in the 114th Congress which is set to convene formally on January 3rd, 2015.

Current Ranking Member of the Senate’s HELP Committee, Lamar Alexander (R-TN), will likely become Chairman of this influential committee, where he is expected to prioritize the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the Higher Education Act (HEA) in the committee’s legislative queue. Additionally, the retirement of Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) has positioned Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) to likely take the Ranking Member position on the HELP Committee next January. Both Senators Alexander and Murray were among the main architects behind recent reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act— evidence that the two could also work in bipartisan fashion on other education and workforce issues.

In the House current HEW Chairman, John Kline (R-MN), is expected to retain his position pending Republican leadership approval of a request for a term-limit  extension to stay on as Chair (current House rules cap panel leadership at three terms). For the Democrats, Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA) is anticipated to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of current HEW Ranking Member George Miller (D-CA).

With the Republican Party set to take the reins of Congressional power early next year, the question now shifts to what education and workforce legislation— possibly including the Perkins Act— will be prioritized in a new Congress. Nevertheless, the current “lame duck” Congress still has much to accomplish beginning next week when both Chambers are set to reconvene.

As we have previously shared, Congress passed a Continuing Appropriations Resolution (CR) which extended Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 spending levels into the current FY 2015. This stopgap funding measure is set to expire on December 11th of this year and Congress must act to fund the federal government past that date. NASDCTEc and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) have called on Congress to pass a comprehensive omnibus spending bill to replace the current CR and restore funding to the Perkins basic state grant program. Senate Democrats recently circulated a similar request last month.

As all of this and more unfolds over the coming weeks and months, check back here for more information and updates.

Gainful Employment Regulations Finalized and Released

Last Friday, the Obama Administration’s Department of Education (ED) released the final version of its widely anticipated “gainful employment” regulations which impact postsecondary institutions offering career education programs. These newly finalized rules, set to go into effect July 1st, 2015, regulate institutional eligibility to access Title IV federal student aid under the Higher Education Act (HEA). Current law requires that most for-profit programs and certificate programs at non-profit and public institutions prepare students for “gainful employment in a recognized occupation” to access Title IV student aid money. However, current statute does not fully define the term “gainful employment” and these regulations have sought to do just that.

As we have previously shared, these regulations are the result of nearly five years of off-and-on negotiated rulemaking sessions between a broad swath of the higher education community and ED. A previous attempt by the Department to implement new gainful employment regulations was struck down by a federal district court in 2012 which ruled that the rules were arbitrarily constructed and applied, but upheld ED’s authority to make a new, more fully justified set in the future. Last Friday, after months of negotiated rulemaking sessions failed to reach consensus agreement, ED released the final version of these regulations for public consumption.

Under the proposed regulations gainful employment will be measured using three criteria which ED hopes will identify and weed out the lowest-performing programs among the institutions and programs these regulations apply to. Almost all programs at for-profit postsecondary institutions, as well as non-degree programs at public and private nonprofit institutions, including some community colleges and area career technical education centers, will be subject to these new regulations which include:

The Department’s factsheet which lays out these metrics in a bit more detail, can be found here.

Significantly, ED did not include a program cohort default rate (pCDR) as a third accountability metric— a measure which was included in the Department’s initial proposal this past spring. Many community colleges and sub-associate degree institutions argued that a pCDR metric would unfairly penalize their programs whose students largely do not receive any federal student aid.

While these regulations are set to go into effect July 1st, 2015, a transition period for institutions to meet the more stringent debt-to-earnings metrics will be established over the next seven years to allow programs to make the necessary changes to meet these new requirements. A press release from ED, containing more information can be found here and the final regulations can be found here.

Steve Voytek, Government Relations Manager 

By Steve Voytek in News, Public Policy
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