Dive Brief:
- Few higher education leaders expect any progress out of Congress in the next year, at least, when it comes to the overdue reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that the chances of a major overhaul in an election year are slim, and the likelihood a new Congress will take on the challenge of a massive rewrite at the start of their terms means it could be a couple years before a comprehensive law is passed — though smaller bills may make it through in the meantime.
- A handful of issues have bipartisan support, including simplification of federal student aid programs and loan repayment plans, but agreement on how to accomplish this is not guaranteed, leaving the expected pace of progress through standalone bills or additions to other legislation very much unknown.
Dive Insight:
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), leader of that body’s education committee, said in 2015 he wanted to have a rewrite of the Higher Education Act on the president’s desk by the end of the year. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act got an overhaul, but its higher education counterpart got trapped by time. Presidential candidates on the right and the left are proposing ambitious initiatives for higher education, including, on the Democrat side, ways to make college tuition- and debt-free. The campaign promises are a long way off from policy, however.
Last year, sexual assault victims and their allies were pushing back against the Safe Campus Act, but as that bill seems to have died at the federal level, student groups are turning to state legislation, including mandatory police reporting requirements in sexual assault cases in Delaware, and campus carry legislation in Missouri and Georgia.