US Senate Reauthorizes Higher Ed bill (with incentives for foreign language study)

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Senate Panel Puts Higher-Education Legislation on Fast Track as It
Approves Deficit-Reduction Bill
By STEPHEN BURD

The U.S. Senate committee that oversees education approved a bill on
Tuesday that would cut over $15-billion -- chiefly from government
subsidies to private student-loan providers -- and use the savings to
reduce the federal budget deficit and create two new grant programs for
students from low-income families.

The panel also put legislation that it had passed in September to extend
the Higher Education Act for six years (S 1614) on the fast track by
attaching it to the budget-cutting measure, which is a top priority of
Senate Republican leaders. The committee, formally the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, approved the measure by a vote of
15 to 5.

The legislation is aimed at meeting the panel's obligations as part of a
broader Congressional effort to reduce the deficit, a process known as
budget reconciliation. Republican Congressional leaders plan to cut
spending on federal entitlement programs, such as student loans, so they
can instead reduce the deficit, lower taxes, and provide additional relief
to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Democrats on the committee were divided over the reconciliation bill, with
four -- including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the panel's top
Democrat -- joining their 11 Republican colleagues in passing it.

Before the final vote, however, the Democrats united in railing against
the Republican leadership for proposing to cut entitlement programs that
benefit low-income people -- such as Medicaid, food stamps, and student
loans -- at the same time that the leadership plans to push additional tax
cuts through Congress.

But Mr. Kennedy maintained that the reconciliation bill provides the best
hope for passing the legislation reauthorizing the Higher Education Act
and for providing additional grant aid to help low-income students gain
access to college. "The bill provides over $9-billion in additional aid
and benefits to students struggling to go to college," he said. "It also
comes up with the savings by cutting bank subsidies, not student benefits.
So it is a good bipartisan compromise."

Under the legislation, savings from the loan programs would be used to
create a new program that would provide $6-billion over five years in
additional awards to Pell Grant recipients. The proposal is similar to one
that President Bush offered in February, when he suggested using savings
from the loan programs to increase the maximum Pell Grant by $100 a year
for five years. The maximum Pell Grant is currently $4,050.

The bill would also provide an additional $2.25-billion over five years in
grants to low-income students who major in mathematics, the sciences, or
foreign languages that are deemed to be "critical to the national security
of the United States." Under that program, Pell Grant recipients majoring
in the specified subjects would be eligible to receive additional grants
worth up to at least $1,500 a year in their junior and senior years of
college.

Sen. Michael B. Enzi, the Wyoming Republican who is chairman of the Senate
committee, and Mr. Kennedy have proposed increasing spending on those two
new programs since unveiling them in September, when they anticipated
spending $4.5-billion for the new mandatory program for Pell Grant
recipients and $1-billion for the grants to math, science, and
foreign-language majors. The increases were possible because the cuts to
the loan programs generated greater savings than initially predicted.

The committee's leaders also added to the measure provisions from a
hurricane-relief bill (S 1715) that they introduced last month to assist
students and colleges affected by Hurricane Katrina. Under the provisions,
most students who took out loans this fall to attend colleges that have
been closed temporarily by the hurricane would not have repay them. In
addition, Gulf Coast colleges that have been forced to close would not be
required to return federal student-aid dollars they have received this
semester.

In addition to the spending on education, the committee's bill would
devote $7-billion over the next five years to deficit reduction.

College lobbyists had mixed reactions to the decision by the committee
leadership to attach the reauthorization bill to the reconciliation
legislation.

The lobbyists acknowledge that there are some advantages to linking the
two bills. Doing so, they say, may present the only hope that work on the
reauthorization legislation will be completed this year. Senate leaders
hope to bring a comprehensive budget-reconciliation package -- which would
include the Senate panel's bill as well as reconciliation bills drafted by
other committees -- to the chamber's floor by the end of the month.

In addition, wrapping the two bills together would make it more difficult
for senators to add amendments to the bill, including amendments that
could be harmful to colleges. It takes 60 votes to amend a
budget-reconciliation bill, rather than the simple majority needed to
alter most other types of bills on the Senate floor.

But it is unclear whether Congress will be able to pass a reconciliation
package this year. Republican lawmakers appear to be divided over the
wisdom of cutting entitlement spending and reducing taxes in the wake of
the two hurricanes. Conservative Republicans are pushing their colleagues
to increase the magnitude of the cuts to offset the tens or even hundreds
of billions of dollars that the federal government is likely to spend to
rebuild devastated areas along the Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, some moderate
Republicans have expressed reservations about moving forward with
reconciliation at all.

In addition, combining the two measures in the Senate doesn't make much
sense if the leaders of the education committee in the U.S. House of
Representatives don't follow suit. Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, who
oversees the House committee, has not announced his intentions yet. If Mr.
Boehner chooses not to link his panel's version of the reauthorization
legislation to reconciliation -- and many lobbyists believe he won't --
then the Senate panel's decision to combine the measures will be moot.




Senate Compromise Yields a Bipartisan Higher-Education Bill (9/23/2005)

Senate Panel Backs Away From Proposals to Recall Student Aid From Colleges
Closed by Katrina (9/22/2005)

Higher-Education Bill in Senate Would Direct Savings to Deficit Reduction
and 2 New Grant Programs (9/8/2005)

Huge Education Bill Moves Closer to Passage in U.S. House (7/29/2005)

House and Senate Budget Plans Diverge Over How to Use Savings From Loan
Program (3/18/2005)

Bush Proposes Increase for Pell Grants (2/18/2005)





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Copyright  2005 by The Chronicle of Higher Education