AFT SUPPORTS RELIEF FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS

As Democrats hit the ground running in the first 100 hours of a new Congress, the AFT was quick to voice support for H.R. 5, the College Student Relief Act of 2007. Sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), this bill would phase in interest rate cuts over five years for undergraduate borrowers of new subsidized student loans, from a fixed rate of 6.8 percent to a fixed rate of 3.4 percent. Once fully phased in, the interest rate cut is estimated to help ease the financial burden of more than 5.5 million undergraduate students.

“We are pleased to be working with a Congress that is clearly focused on helping students and their families gain access and succeed in higher education,” says AFT legislative associate Jennifer Luciano. “We hope Congress will take the next and equally important step of ...raising the maximum Pell grant—the foundation of the Higher Education Act—from $4,050 to $5,100.”

In a letter written jointly by the AFT and National Education Association and sent to Rep. Miller, chair of the House Education and Workforce committee, the unions criticized the recent record levels of student debt. Last year, the Republicans pushed through a $12 billion cut to the student loan program, but retained subsidies for the private loan companies, causing the interest rate to rise. Miller’s bill would reverse that.

The bill is likely to face tough resistance because of its cost. In the Senate, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) is expected to introduce a bill that will address interest rates and profits for lenders in the context of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act.

United Faculty of Florida president Tom Auxter gave U.S. education officials visiting Orlando a short list of priorities to guide them as they consider tightening rules governing student aid and other federal higher education policies. “We propose changes in orientation and policy to alleviate the burden of student debt, to address the academic staffing crisis, and to dispel the myth that standardized testing is a solution to problems in higher education,” he told the representatives from the U.S. Department of Education who convened in Florida on Nov. 2 at one of the four hearings held around the country this fall.

The hearings followed the Sept. 26 release of a report from the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, a panel appointed by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings in 2005. The commission made recommendations on topics such as college affordability and federal aid policy, accreditation, standardized tests and institutional accountability. While those recommendations may influence the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which has been stalled in Congress for several years, the timing of the four hearings suggests that the department wants to use a process called “negotiated rule-making” to implement changes through the fine-tuning of federal regulations.

Many students have spoken at these hearings about the burden of student debt and the limitations it places on career and life options. That topic was first on Auxter’s list, as he criticized an older generation’s willingness to abandon its responsibilities to the next generation. He endorsed a “Five-Point Plan for Fair Loan Payments,” a proposal generated by the Project on Student Debt, a coalition to which the AFT belongs.

Auxter saved his choice words for the failure of the Spellings commission to address the academic staffing crisis caused by institutions relying on temporary, contingent faculty to do the work of teaching, service and research formerly done primarily by well-supported, full-time faculty. He described model legislation that the AFT is proposing in some state legislatures that would guarantee prorated pay and benefits for part-time faculty, among other things.

Auxter also blasted the idea of creating a national standardized test for college students.

To read Auxter’s full testimony, go to www.aft.org/higher_ed/washwire/auxter_spellingstestimony.pdf.