COURTNEY CHAMPIONS COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY MEASURES AS THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE PASSES A PARTISAN RE-WRITE OF HEA

WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02), a senior member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee made the following statement after an extensive re-write of the Higher Education Act was rushed through committee last night. Courtney offered two critical amendments to save the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, and to allow graduates saddled with high-interest student loans to refinance the debt at lower rates: neither was adopted by the majority.

Click here to view Courtney's opening remarks from the committee markup on Tuesday

"This is another hyper-partisan effort led by the Republican majority that will incredibly make college more expensive and close pathways for young Americans to pursue critical careers that will support our economy," said Courtney. "If this bill were ever signed into law, it would dismantle programs designed to make college more affordable for middle-class families. One prime example of this is a provision in the bill to close-down the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that has supported students entering critical professions since its inception 10 years ago. The program allows public service workers such as teachers, police officers, rural doctors, and others to have their student loan debt forgiven after 10 years of work in their occupation. I offered a bipartisan amendment during the committee proceedings to save the PSLF program and expand it to include farmers and veteran service organizations. That effort was backed by nearly 200 organizations such as the National Fraternal Order of Police, National Young Farmers Collation, and the American Legion. Unfortunately, even with the votes of several Republican members of the committee, the amendment ultimately failed by a vote of 19-20.

"I offered a second amendment that would have simply provided college graduates with the ability to refinance high-interest student loan debt at lower rates. This proposal, which I first introduced as a standalone bill along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, would allow student loan debt to be refinanced in the same way as mortgages, car loans, and credit card debt. Unfortunately, this amendment was also defeated by a vote of 18-21."

Democratic members were only provided the text of the bill, which is 590 pages long, six days prior to the markup in committee. No legislative hearings were ever scheduled before the bill and its amendments were voted on.

The bill makes a number of sweeping changes to provide more support for for-profit institutions, dramatically rework the federal student aid program, and cease teacher preparation programs, among others.

Changes to Financial Assistance Structure

Title IV of HEA provides students and families with several options to finance higher education. Currently, federal dollars are only directed to institutions that meet quality controls set forth by the Department of Education and provides a wide array of loan structures and repayment options to meet varying financial needs.

This bill creates a "one grant, one loan, one work-study" program and eliminates the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG)—a need-based grant to students that do not need to be paid back. FSEOG dollars are provided to universities to distribute to Pell-eligible students who may need extra support. For every three dollars of federal FSEOG support, a university matches one dollar. Eliminating this program means eliminating the last line of support for the neediest students. In addition to this program, the bill eliminates the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program. This program provides up to $4,000 per year for students who agree to teach for four years upon graduation. The bill also eliminates subsidized loan programs. Together, these three eliminated programs would negatively affect 8.5 million students annually.

In addition to eliminating the aforementioned programs, this bill creates the "Federal ONE Loan" to replace current unsubsidized and subsidized Stafford Loans, Parent PLUS Loans, and Graduate PLUS Loans. Since this bill will eliminate subsidized Stafford Loans which means that for the first time students will face interest accrual while they are in school. Currently, federal student loans can be repaid in a variety of ways, but the ONE Loan program creates one income-based repayment plan that increases a borrower's monthly payment from the current 10% to 15%. Additionally, the new repayment program, with very limited exception, requires borrowers to make a minimum $25 payment every month, which threatens the lowest-income borrowers to default. The bill also removes many options for loan forgiveness (including Public Service Loan Forgiveness)—rather than the current policy of basing forgiveness on the length of time of repayment, it bases forgiveness (called "cancellation" in the bill) on the amount repaid, having a disproportionate impact on the lowest-income borrowers. Under this calculation, a low-income borrower who owes $30,000 in student loan debt could take 138 years of repayment to reach forgiveness status.

For Pell Grants, the bill does not increase the maximum grant amount, fails to adjust for inflation, and uses mandatory program funds to create a "Pell bonus." The bonus would pay out $300 more a semester for students who complete 15 credit hours—universities generally encourage students not to overload their schedule because it generally leads to poorer grades and an increased likelihood of failure.

Rolls Back Regulations on For-Profit Institutions

Perhaps most concerning, the bill redefines an "institute of higher education" without differentiating non-profit and for-profit higher education institutions—opening the door for for-profit, sometimes predatory, institutions to access federal financial aid programs that were not afforded to these schools under prior legislation.

Eliminates Teacher Preparation Supports

The bill eliminates Title II of HEA that provided all federal funding for teacher preparation programs. Title II programs effectively created a pipeline to prepare teachers across the nation through the support of Teacher Quality Partnership Grants and other grants authorized to enhance teacher education. Given that there is currently, a shortage of teachers in public education, eliminating Title II could not come at a worse time.

Creates a Low-Quality Workforce Training "Apprenticeship Program"

The bill replaces the Title II teacher preparation support system with a new grant program for institutions of higher education (which, based on the new definition, includes for-profits) to partner with corporations to receive federal funding. The program lacks important quality controls and regulations to make sure students are receiving fully credentialed training. Further, the grant program does not prioritize low-income or underserved students. The apprenticeship program as defined in the bill actually fails to meet minimum apprenticeship standards as defined by the Department of Labor and works more as a subsidized internship or "earn-and-learn" program than a qualified apprenticeship program.

Cuts Funding to International Education Programs

The bill cuts two authorized programs under Title VI of HEA—the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program and the American Overseas Research Centers. These programs help undergraduate students' master foreign languages and areas of study. Universities also use this funding to promote their postgraduate research and exchange/research programs abroad. As a whole, Title VI is cut by more than $3.5 million.