New Higher-Ed Bill May Get Through Congress This Week

Five years overdue, the House and the Senate may finally reach a compromise on the re-authorized Higher Education Act, the law that predominantly governs student aid, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“With Compromises, Higher-Ed Bill Could Move Through Congress This Week,” July 28, 2008).

If the bill makes it out of the House education committee, it would then have to get a majority vote in both the full House and Senate before the bill is sent to the president, which legislators hope to do before Congress breaks for its August recess next week.

Legislators, however, must first agree on two major sticking points: how to structure a new program that would provide graduate education grants to schools that enroll a large number of African American students, and whether states should be penalized if they reduce the amount of funds they allocate for higher education in their annual budgets.


Legislators Close to Resolution on Two Main Issues

On July 25, legislators said that they had come to an agreement on the graduate grant-program provision. Under the negotiated agreement, both predominately black institutions with at least 40 percent black student enrollment, and historically black institutions will be able to benefit from the new grant program. However, the grant will be distributed under two separate programs, one for historically black colleges and universities and one for predominantly black institutions.

Legislators are still negotiating a provision that would require states to increase spending on higher education each year over the next five years.

Although Congress may come to an agreement on the various tenets on the bill before its August recess, if legislators fail to resolve these issues this week, the bill won’t be revisited until after the November presidential election.

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