Reauthorization Redux: Colleges’ Wish List

In preparation for the next reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, due in 2014, lawmakers on the U.S. House of Representatives education committee have asked stakeholders for their wish lists. Here are some of the suggestions colleges have made, grouped by subject.

Pell Grants

• Provide no-less-than-annual inflationary increases
• Restore eligibility for students without a diploma or GED who show an “ability to benefit” from federal aid
• Make the grants available to students in short-term programs
• Reinstate year-round Pell Grants
• Extend the 12-semester limit on Pell eligibility
• Use additional Pell dollars to encourage timely completion or reward institutions with strong outcomes

Other federal grants

• Maintain the campus-based aid programs
• Stop the erosion of the TRIO college-access programs
• Revive the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) program, or create another state matching program

Loans

• Let colleges set lower borrowing limits for certain groups of students
• Preserve the in-school interest exemption for all borrowers
• Restore graduate students’ eligibility for subsidized loans
• Consolidate the federal income-based repayment plans; consider making IBR the default option
• Expand and remake the Perkins Loan program, as President Obama has proposed
• Reassess the underwriting criteria for PLUS loans to parents
• Require college certification of private loans

Simplification

• Streamline federal regulations
• Consolidate disclosures to students
• Standardize financial-aid award letters (but allow institutions to add elements)

Accountability

• Adjust colleges’ student-loan default rates to account for the percentage of students who borrow
• Consider alternatives to default rates for judging institutional quality
• Account for student risk factors when assessing institutions

Other

• Add state “maintenance of effort” requirements to more programs
• Support innovation and cost containment through the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education or the Experimental Sites Initiative
• Count military and veterans’ aid as federal money in the 90/10 income formula for for-profit colleges
• Let accreditors conduct streamlined reviews of low-risk colleges