Higher Ed Roundup: Week of January 26 – January 30

House Passes Stimulus Bill …

… While Senate Details Own Stimulus Proposal

Report Recommends Reforms to Pk-16 Pipeline to Improve College Readiness

Briefly Noted …

House Passes Stimulus Bill …

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved on a party-line vote an $825-billion economic stimulus package, which includes nearly $30-billion in increased spending on student aid. The legislation, which passed by a vote of 244 to 188, would increase the maximum Pell Grant to $5,350 from its current level of $4,731, provide an additional $490 million for the Federal Work-Study Program, and increase by $2,000 the amount students can borrow in unsubsidized federal student loans each year for the next two years. In addition to the spending increases, the bill would temporarily replace the Hope higher education tax credit with a partially refundable $2,500 per-year tuition tax break. The legislation also includes a key change that the student loan industry has been lobbying for – a retroactive shift to the index used to determine the quarterly interest rate subsidy paid to lenders on federal student loans. Apart from student aid, the bill also includes $79 billion for states to help them maintain all of their education spending at or above their 2006 fiscal year levels over the next two years.

… While Senate Details Own Stimulus Proposal

Meanwhile, Senate Democratic leaders this week released details of their proposed stimulus package, which is largely similar to the House version, though it comes with a slightly smaller price tag for higher education. Like the House bill, the Senate measure would replace the HOPE tax credit with a $2,500 per-year credit, but limits refundability to only 30 percent (compared to 40 percent in the House bill), at a total cost of $12.9 billion over 10 years. The Senate draft would increase the maximum Pell Grant by $681 over two years, compared to the $500 increase proposed by the House. Unlike the House bill, the Senate version does not include additional spending for Federal Work-Study, increased unsubsidized federal student loan limits, or the proposed subsidy shift for lenders . It does, however, include an additional $160 million for the AmeriCorps National Service program. Senators expect to vote on the bill next week.

Report Recommends Reforms to Pk-16 Pipeline to Improve College Readiness

The federal government must make a much more concerted and coordinated effort to address the college readiness crisis confronting this country, according to a new report released on Thursday by the Education Policy Program here at the New America Foundation. According to report, “Bridging the Gap: How to Strengthen the Pk-16 Pipeline to Improve College Readiness,” low college readiness rates are “a massive failure” of the pre-kindergarten through college system as a whole. High schools, colleges, and universities have not worked together to establish expectations or common standards as to what students should know and be able to do. College admissions policies vary widely from institution to institution, and key admissions criteria, like standardized tests, are not anchored in high school academic goals. Similarly, high schools have not aligned their graduation requirements with college readiness standards. As a result, far too many students leave high school unprepared for the rigors of college and the workplace. The report calls on the federal government to provide states with incentives to adopt national college and work-readiness standards; leverage its dollars more effectively to strengthen early intervention and college remediation programs; mandate high school graduation plans for all students no later than ninth grade; and require K-12 and higher education to provide better data on students’ progress through the PK-16 system.

Briefly Noted …

• The stimulus bills under consideration by the House and Senate would make nearly four million low- and moderate-income students newly eligible for tuition tax relief, according to a report released Tuesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Unlike the HOPE higher education tax credit, the proposed American Opportunity Tax Credit is partially refundable, allowing students whose families do not earn enough to pay federal income taxes to benefit from it.
• The City University of New York (CUNY) outlined a blueprint for a new 5,000 student community college in Manhattan that would be designed to foster more student engagement, enhanced support services and a streamlined curriculum. According to a report in the New York Times, this redesigned model of a community college, which has already shown promising results as a pilot program, would require students to enroll full-time for their first year and to take rigorous remedial math and literacy courses, while the school would offer more one-on-one support and financial support for tuition and books. CUNY has not secured funding for the school yet, but they hope to break ground in the coming years.