House Democrats plan this month to advance a massive overhaul of the 1965 Higher Education Act that would help provide free community college and ease student loan debt.
Lawmakers told the Washington Examiner the House Education Committee plans to vote on the College Affordability Act by the end of October, setting up a possible House floor vote and passage by the end of the year.
“Student debt is one of the biggest issues we hear about at town hall meetings,” Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, author of the bill and chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “Our legislation will go a long way to reduce the burden of student debt.”
The 1,200-page bill provides a long list of new services and benefits for students and student loan holders, and it comes with an eye-popping $400 billion price tag.
Asked about the cost this week, Scott described it as a “modest” proposal that dents the Treasury far less than the GOP-passed $1.5 trillion tax cut measure.
The bill would incentivize states to provide free community college with a three-to-one funding match and would simplify student loans and allow refinancing at lower interest rates.
The bill would provide additional services to help students pay for and attend college, including daycare and career and academic advice.
Free college is a top talking point among Democratic presidential candidates.
Most of the Democratic candidates back at least making community college free. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist from Vermont, pledges to make free all public colleges and universities if elected president.
While the House bill incentivizes states to provide free community college with generous help from the federal government, it stops short of making four-year public college entirely free.
“It’s more expensive,” Scott explained. “And this is a more modest approach that we believe we can get passed with a Republican Congress and Republican president.”
The measure has many detractors, among them Republican lawmakers who have rejected the proposal as too expensive and burdensome.
Among the provisions in the measure is one that would toss out Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ overhaul of regulations regarding campus sexual assault investigations. DeVos is seeking to improve due process rights for the accused, among other changes.
The bill would also reinstate Obama-era regulation of for-profit colleges to require proof that graduates gain employment.
Some education experts said the most troubling aspect of the bill is that it would ultimately end up raising college costs by providing more student aid.
“Colleges have high prices because they always have things they think they could do with more money, and student aid programs make sure much of that money can come through them,” Neal P. McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
“Policy that would actually move higher education in the right direction would decrease federal subsidies both to students and schools, forcing both to become much more focused on educational efficiency and effectiveness,” he said.
The House is likely to pass the bill thanks to a Democratic majority.
It likely will not pass the GOP-led Senate.
Upper chamber lawmakers are struggling to pass their own higher education measure after partisan disagreement forced them to scrap a broad overhaul plan.
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, is working on a scaled-back version that would, like the House bill, expand Pell grants, streamline the student loan process, and provide permanent funding for historically black colleges.
Senate Democrats, however, said they aren’t interested in working on a narrow overhaul of higher education, and their support is needed to pass almost all legislation thanks to the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Scott told the Washington Examiner he’s ready to work out a deal with the Senate after the House passes its measure later this year.
“It will require them to pass a bill,” Scott said of the Senate. “We are going to pass ours and do our work, then we will work together to see what we can agree on.”
