Reauthorizing higher ed, protecting lower-income earners

Congress has moved forward on its charge to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA) this session. Education committees are holding hearings, passing on some pieces of legislation that are part of the act and floating trial balloons--to the delight or dismay of various constituencies.

For more than a year, the Bush administration has indicated that it would like to see the legislation authorizing most of the federal higher education programs follow some aspects of the model of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal legislation that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In particular, according to a strategic plan released by the U.S. Department of Education last year, the administration wants to link student and institutional performance with such accountability measures as retention and graduation rates.

Another primary concern in reauthorizing the HEA is the issue of college costs. One of the purposes of the HEA is to ensure that qualified students have the opportunity to go to college, regardless of cost. Title IV of the act authorizes the federal aid grant and loan programs that are the largest source of aid to students in the United States (and in 2002, supported more than $55 billion in assistance).

Because the rising cost of college outpaces the purchasing power of federal grants, Congress is concerned about those costs and, for the last two reauthorizations, has used the process as an opportunity to explore the issue and consider setting policies to address it.

In this go-round, under the banner of "accountability," some voices in the administration and Congress are calling for a significant  shift in federal policy--one in which the government would get involved in evaluating colleges and universities, and even funding them, on the basis of educational "outcomes" such as graduation rates and test scores. This is a source of concern to the AFT and much of the higher education community, except the for-profit career college sector, which has proposed that institutions be required to issue "institutional report cards," showing information about an institution's mission and goals, but also data about outcomes such as graduation and retention rates, job placement, starting salaries and so on.

As the issue of accountability comes up in the context of this reauthorization process, the AFT has taken the position of supporting both the good sense of holding institutions accountable to students, families, taxpayers and the public--and the track record of measures already in place to guarantee accountability through accreditation and institutional self-regulation.

The AFT is taking a close look at graduation rates, one of the outcomes that those who are advocates of institutional reports tout as being easy to measure. The union is studying the effect that serving increasing numbers of "nontraditional" students has on graduation rates and the time it takes to earn a degree. It is also looking at whether using these rates as a barometer is appropriate given the diverse roles and missions of higher education institutions.

The AFT is opposed to a proposal that has surfaced from the career college sector to "front load" Pell grants, i.e., pump more grant dollars to students in their first two years of undergraduate study. While front-load advocates say students need more help in their first two years in order to help them "persist," or stay in college, the AFT and those opposed to the concept assert that reducing aid to needy students after their first two years will exacerbate persistence problems.

A boost to teacher training

The U.S. House of Representatives has already taken up Title II of the HEA, the teacher education portion of the law. On July 9, the House passed two bills with which the AFT was involved. One, H.R. 2211, the Ready to Teach Act, has to do with teacher preparation and aligning teacher qualifications with specifications in the No Child Left Behind Act. The other bill, H.R. 438, the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act, provides incentives and loan forgiveness up to $17,500 for K-12 teachers in low-income schools teaching in the areas of math, science, special education or reading.

H.R. 2211 forces colleges with education programs to report the pass-rates of students who take licensure exams, allowing the Department of Education to create "report cards." Programs deemed "low performing" would become ineligible for federal grants, and students in those programs would have their federal aid revoked. The bill also authorizes federal grants for "innovative programs" for certification, including alternative routes and charter colleges.

In a letter to representatives regarding the bill, the AFT expressed support for the reporting requirements and the goal of hiring highly qualified teachers for each classroom. However, the union also voiced concern over the mechanics of a new evaluation system for schools of education, calling it "unworkable" and advising a more realistic alternative. The letter also said that the bill "lacks sufficient criteria to ensure the viability and effectiveness of" alternative certification routes and charter colleges of education. The final bill failed to clarify these issues, says Gabriella Gomez, higher education legislative associate.

The AFT is very supportive of the loan forgiveness provisions of H.R. 438, yet was disappointed that the House failed to pass an expansion of the program to include those who teach in early education programs. The AFT also requested that the loan forgiveness be made an entitlement--therefore not subject to annual appropriations--but the House Rules Committee did not allow that amendment to be proposed. Other members of the Democratic Caucus voiced concern over whether budgetary appropriations controlled by Republican majorities would ever fund the program anywhere near the requisite level.

Both of these bills await Senate action later in the year.

New formula hurts 84,000 Pell grant recipients

At a time when disinvestment in public higher education is causing student costs to soar, the U.S. Department of Education has instituted a rules change to the Pell grant eligibility formula that appears to add salt to the wound for needy families.

On May 30, the department published revised versions of the state tax tables it uses to compute family eligibility for federal student assistance. The new tables reduce the amount of paid state taxes families are allowed to declare, thus raising their apparent income. The effect of the change, according to education department budget analysts, is to bump 84,000 students from Pell grant eligibility in the 2004-05 academic year. This will reduce the cost of Pell grants by $270 million.

After the Congressional Research Service issued a memo on the change, some members of Congress and student advocates cried foul. A department official in a Washington Post story is quoted as saying the change would affect only "a handful of students."

Within a month, four bills were introduced in the U.S. Senate and House to stop the new formula analysis or demand a study from the General Accounting Office on the impact of the change. The AFT has written to Congress asking that no change be implemented without further study of its impact.

The Bush administration recently proposed changes to the rule governing who gets paid for overtime work. The change would affect millions, giving employers the ability to reclassify workers as "administrative personnel" and therefore not subject to overtime requirements. The AFT legislation department notes that virtually all white-collar workers earning more than $65,000 per year could face the elimination of their overtime pay. The House of Representatives narrowly defeated an amendment to the Health and Human Services appropriation bill that would have prevented the rules change. The bill will move into the Senate sometime in September, where Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) will offer another amendment stopping the Bush administration from changing the regulation. Thousands have flooded Washington with letters opposing the change, and the AFL-CIO is directing a full-scale campaign to block it. Contact your senators and tell them to support the Harkin amendment to the Labor-HHS bill.