Comments of the AFT/NEA On the Senate Bill to Amend the HEA

Pell Grants

AFT and NEA support the increases to Pell Grants, which serve as the cornerstone of the federal government's commitment to help low- and middle-income students pay for college. The increase to a maximum level of $6,300 over the next six years is significant but also falls short of doubling the grant award to $11,600 which we support.

The increases to Pell Grants are important since students who depend on these funds already have seen the purchasing power of their grants decline alarmingly during the past two decades. In that period, the purchasing power of the maximum Pell Grant has declined by half: from 84 percent of “average fixed costs of four-year public institutions” to 42 percent today.

AFT and NEA support the increases to the Pell Grant maximum as outlined in the Senate bill and any efforts to further increase it.

We also support the inclusion of Pell Grants for year round use and the creation of the new ProGAP program which will provide additional Pell Grants for the neediest students, are provisions that significantly enhance opportunities for students.

Loans

Direct Loans

AFT and NEA believe that one barrier to access has been the ever-increasing loan burden that students must shoulder-particularly our nation's low- and middle-income students. We think that priority should be given to lessening the pressure created by loans while also increasing Pell Grants. We supported the bi-partisan STAR Act which moves towards ensuring greater access while lessening the debt burden by creating incentives for institutions of higher education to switch to the federal Direct Loan Program. We support any efforts by the Committee to move in this direction.

In addition to including the STAR Act, we support the bill's inclusion of additional funding for the Direct Loan program. Since Direct Loans are less expensive to administer, the increased funding to the program will mean more access to higher education for more students.

AFT and NEA support any efforts to include the STAR Act to the bill as well as the language in the bill that provides increased funding for the Direct Loan program.

Consolidation

The Senate bill maintains the ability of students to consolidate their loans at a fixed rate. The current system has provided struggling students with a fixed-payment structure that allows them to budget and plan accordingly. We support retaining this option since a variable rate, as proposed in the House bill, has the potential both to make college much more expensive for students and their families and to make financial planning more difficult.

Interest Rate Cap on Student Loans

Retaining the interest rate cap on student loans, as the Senate bill does, allows students to keep their loans affordable. Just a few years ago, Congress passed legislation to ensure that beginning in July 2006 students would not be forced to pay more than 6.8 percent interest on their student loans. We applaud the Senate for not breaking their promise to students by increasing the cap, and thereby increasing the cost of higher education for tens of millions of future students.

PLUS Loans for Graduate Students

AFT and NEA support the changes in the PLUS Loans to allow graduate or professional students to participate in the program. The availability of the PLUS loans for graduate students will ensure that they have the ability to have the full cost of attendance that is not covered by their current financial aid package. This is especially important for graduate students who often find themselves running out of federal student aid options and turning to private loans that can be more costly.

Single Definition, 50 Percent Rule and 90/10 Rule

AFT and NEA are primarily concerned with ensuring the proper management of federal funds and protecting students and taxpayers against fraud and abuse. While the Senate bill maintains separate definitions for public/nonprofit institutions and for-profits institutions, of ongoing and significant concern is the repeal of the “50 percent rule” and the 90/10 rule.

We oppose changing the 50 percent rule which has ensured integrity in federal student financial aid programs while acknowledging that an element of “face-to-face” interaction should be part of an undergraduate education. With the lifting of the rule, we believe there needs to be strong language to protect the student aid program from fraud and abuse. We support any efforts to strengthen the language in the Senate bill to provide safeguards against fraud and abuse as recommended in a GAO audit of a model distance-education program.

Finally, we oppose the lifting of the so-called 90/10 rule which mandates that for-profit schools demonstrate that 10 percent of their revenue is derived from sources other than federal student-aid funds. The 90/10 rule was put into effect to ensure that federal student-aid was not the sole funding stream for these schools. As a result of the implementation of that rule, fraud and abuse in federal student-aid programs has drastically been reduced. There is no evidence to believe this protection is no longer necessary. While the Senate bill provides some modest language as a replacement for the 90/10 rule, we do not believe it is sufficient enough to ensure against fraud and abuse. We support any efforts to reinstate the 90/10 rule.

Student Speech and Association

During the 40-year history of the HEA, Congress has repeatedly rejected the idea of imposing federal control over the professional operation of our country's colleges and universities. Congress has rightly understood that academic policy is best left in the hands of governing boards of each institution and that curriculum and teaching are not areas that require government intervention. Our nation's system of higher education reflects the academic diversity and views of its students, professors and programs. This diversity has been a key factor in establishing America's primacy in higher education. Further, the internal procedures that higher education institutions have developed to ensure objectivity and high standards-academic freedom, tenure and shared governance-have been an integral part of building and sustaining our world-class reputation for educational excellence.

Section 104 would violate these longstanding principles of academic autonomy by delineating a set of government guidelines for policies on college campuses across the country. Congress should recognize that virtually every college and university already has adopted procedures to ensure a fair resolution of complaints by students who claim they are being treated unfairly for expressing opinions in their coursework. As a result, Section 104 appears to be a solution in search of a problem that simply does not exist. We support any efforts to strike this language from the bill.

Transfer of Credits

The Senate bill contains language that would prohibit institutions of higher education from basing their credit acceptance policies on the accreditation of the sending institution if the accrediting body is recognized by the Secretary of Education. The new federal mandate would effectively eliminate all distinctions based on accreditation, and would force many institutions to spend time and money developing new transfer policies.

We are concerned with this mandate, because institutions should be allowed to exercise their best academic judgment with regard to the terms and conditions that their students must meet to earn their credentials. In addition, we are very concerned that by denying institutions the right to set higher standards than those set by the Secretary of Education, the new federal transfer mandate would eliminate an important tool without providing additional alternatives.

We support any efforts to strike this transfer of credit language from the bill.

Graduate Fellowships

AFT and NEA are concerned about the lack of minorities and women entering graduate school, securing their doctorates and eventually becoming professors. Unfortunately, the numbers of minorities and woman entering doctoral programs and becoming professors is declining.

To this end, we support the Senate bills inclusion of the Patsy Mink Fellowship program. This program will provide funding for women and minorities to enter doctoral programs if they agree to teach in a degree-granting post-secondary institution.

Title II: Teacher Education

AFT and NEA are pleased that the bill being considered keeps the structure of Title II, which has functioned productively in many respects. Additional efforts to align Title II with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), where applicable are also positive steps. We are encouraged by the identification of community colleges as a vital partner in the preparation of teachers. Community colleges can play a key role in preparing future teachers by providing a solid liberal arts foundation before a student enters into the final years of teacher preparation at a four-year institution.

We are also pleased that Title II of the bill focuses on key issues of teacher recruitment, preparation and retention through its support of programs like mentoring, career ladders for paraprofessionals, and induction, internship and residency programs for new teachers. The focus on high need schools is also significant.

In addition to these programs, we would like to see a program for recruitment and retention for urban areas as is authorized for rural schools. We also have a specific concern about Title II's support for "value-added" programs to evaluate teachers. We are concerned that such "value-added" programs have not been thoroughly developed, researched and rigorously evaluated. It is also essential that teachers be a part of any decision to use a value-added system. While we hope that measurement systems will become more refined and credible in the future, we believe that more research, study and psychometric guidelines are necessary before this evaluation tool is used to reward teachers.