GOP takeover signals major changes for higher ed


New House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has supported for-profit colleges as officials lobby against ED's "gainful employment" rules.

Congressional Republicans who have long railed against increases in federal student aid and new regulations aimed at for-profit colleges will serve influential roles on key committees next year—a shift that could change the Obama administration’s approach to important higher-education issues.

Republicans will have a majority in the House of Representatives in 2011 for the first time since 2006, when Democrats secured a large majority in both Congressional chambers. Democrats will maintain a slim majority in the Senate next year.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has pushed for greater federal regulation of for-profit colleges—which include some of the largest online education programs in the country—after government investigations revealed shady recruitment practices.

The proposed “gainful employment” rules would force for-profit colleges like the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University to prove that their students are repaying education loans before the institutions take in billions in federal financial aid.

Republican lawmakers have sent open letters to Duncan asking the administration to scrap the “gainful employment” rules, and Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the new House speaker when the next session of Congress convenes, has pushed for Congress to eliminate a rule that prohibits for-profit colleges from taking in more than 90 percent of tuition from federal financial aid programs.

The midterm elections could be a boon for advocates of for-profit colleges who have largely sided with Congressional Republicans during the drawn-out “gainful employment” rule making.

Harris Miller, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, said in a statement that the administration’s proposed regulations “single out a specific set of students and schools, rather than apply to all students across the board.”

“And that will harm only lower-income students and working adults,” Miller continued, “whose higher-education choices are already very limited.”

Rep. John Kline, the likely Republican chairman of the powerful House education committee, said he would focus on “commonsense steps to simplify [federal] financial aid, streamline the financial aid application process, and ensure student aid programs are administered efficiently” if selected to head the committee in 2011.

Kline described the White House’s “gainful employment” rules as “complex and burdensome” in a Sept. 9 letter to Duncan, and he urged the education secretary to increase federal oversight over public colleges and universities, too.

In August, Kline said ED’s proposal would “harm students,” especially non-traditional students returning to college.

Funding for federal financial aid programs such as Pell Grants could see massive cuts if the GOP abides by its Pledge To America, a list of legislative priorities the party released in the run-up to the Nov. 4 elections.

The Republicans’ pledge included trimming some federal spending to 2008 levels, meaning the Pell Grant program—which assists low-income students and faces a $5.7 billion shortfall—could be scaled back. Federal spending for defense and seniors would not be included in the GOP’s Pledge to America.

The Obama administration raised the maximum Pell Grant amount to $4,860 for fiscal 2011—an increase that was deemed insufficient by some federal financial aid experts, including Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the student loan web site FinAid.org and author of two books about student aid.

Lawmakers would have to double Pell Grant amounts to $10,000 per student to increase the number of college graduates, Kantrowitz said—a stated goal of the Obama administration.

Admissions officials interviewed by eCampus News said the Obama administration’s shift to direct lending from the federal government—a move strongly opposed by GOP leadership—has allowed students to avoid private loans that come with unfavorable repayment terms.

“It’s a very positive trend,” said Lynne Myers, director of financial aid at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., adding that Holy Cross’s Pell Grants have increased by 39 percent from 2009 to 2010. “We saw that the terms and conditions for [private loans] were not favorable to students … so that was a trend that we very much tried to redirect.”

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has urged Congress to cut back federal financial aid to college students, calling the increase of Pell Grant spending “a vicious cycle.”

“Increasing federal subsidies for higher education—whether in the form of Pell Grants or student loans—shifts the responsibility of paying for college from the student, who directly benefits from college, to the taxpayer,” Lindsey Burke, an education policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a Nov. 16 report published by the Washington, D.C.-based organization. “Transferring the burden of student loan financing from university graduates … to the three-quarters of taxpayers who did not attend college is unjust.”

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