Democrats set to renew debt-free college push Presented by Comcast

DEMOCRATS SET TO RENEW DEBT-FREE COLLEGE PUSH: House Democrats today will make a pitch for debt-free college as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul higher education policy, as the party seeks to energize young voters in the midterm elections.

— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will join Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and other Democrats in the rollout of the plan – dubbed the Aim Higher Act – to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. The bill, which is almost certain to go nowhere in the Republican-controlled Congress, will outline Democratic priorities for rewriting the main law that governs higher education.


— The plan aims to “to give every student the opportunity for a debt-free degree that leads to a rewarding career,” according to a Democratic summary. That doesn’t appear to go as far as other debt-free college plans circulated by other Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would eliminate tuition at public colleges and universities for many students.

— The Democratic push comes as GOP legislation by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chairwoman of the House education committee, has stalled. The bill, known as the PROSPER Act, H.R. 4508 (115), was approved in committee in December on a party-line vote, but it has struggled to earn enough Republican support to make it to the House floor.

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ON DEVOS’ SCHEDULE TODAY — TECHNICAL COLLEGE, SCHOOL SAFETY: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will be in Wisconsin today to tour a technical college and attend a “field visit” of the Trump administration’s school safety commission that she leads.

— The secretary will visit Fox Valley Technical College’s Public Safety Training Center and participate in a roundtable discussion with the school’s leaders, local superintendents and school resource officers, the Education Department said.

— DeVos will then join HHS Secretary Alex Azar and other representatives from the Federal Commission on School Safety at Adams-Friendship Middle School in Adams County. The commission’s field visit will be focused on how the school “incorporates a statewide behavioral health framework into its operations,” according to HHS. Wisconsin first lady Tonette Walker will also attend the meeting.

WHAT TO WATCH ON ‘BORROWER DEFENSE’ RULE: The Trump administration is set to release, as early as today, a proposal to overhaul how the Education Department cancels the federal student loans of borrowers who are defrauded by their colleges. The proposal will rewrite the Obama-era “borrower defense to repayment” rule, which DeVos has criticized as too costly for taxpayers and unfair to colleges. Here are some key questions as the administration rolls out the proposal:

— What are the standards for debt relief? Previous draft proposals circulated by the Trump administration called for a significantly stricter standard for when federal student loan borrowers defrauded by their colleges can have their debt forgiven. At issue is whether students have to prove that their college intentionally misled them — and what burden of proof borrowers will have to satisfy in order to pursue their claims.

— How much will it cost or save taxpayers? DeVos and some Congressional Republicans have criticized the Obama-era policy as too expensive for taxpayers, who end up footing the bill for the loan forgiveness if the Education Department can’t recoup the money from the schools that engaged in the fraud. The proposed rule will have to estimate how widespread fraud is in higher education – and how many borrowers would qualify for the loan forgiveness under the new standards.

— What accountability tools for colleges will be include? The 2016 finalized rule included a slew of new powers for the Education Department to require risky colleges to set aside collateral. For-profit schools and some other colleges said they were concerned that these provisions were too severe, and the Trump administration’s draft proposals sought to scale them back.

SENATE PASSES CAREER EDUCATION BILL: The Senate on Monday evening passed legislation to overhaul the main federal law governing career and technical education, moving Congress a step closer to updating it for the first time in roughly a decade.

— Senators, on a voice vote, passed a House-approved bill, H.R. 2353 (115), to reauthorize the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. They voted, under unanimous consent, to adopt a substitute amendment by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to the bill.

— The Senate version of the bill, S. 3217 (115), gained momentum last month when the Trump administration threw its support behind the measure. White House adviser Ivanka Trump has met with lawmakers to shore up support. And DeVos has also prodded lawmakers to take it up.

— Alexander praised the Senate-passed bill for limiting the Education Department’s role in how the federal government doles out career education funding “so states don’t have to ask ‘Mother May I?,’ when they want to make changes to do what is best for their students.”

— What’s next: The bill now heads back to the House for approval of the Senate’s changes to the bill. Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.), who sponsored the House bill, praised the Senate’s action in a joint statement as “one of the final, crucial steps in making better career and technical education options a reality for millions of Americans.”

— Ivanka Trump tweeted on Monday evening: “Optimistic that the House will act before Recess so this important bi-partisan legislation can be signed in to law!”

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT PLANS TO DEBUT NEW STUDENT AID APP NEXT MONTH: The Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul and modernize student aid are moving ahead on schedule, officials from the Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid tell Morning Education.

— Over the past weekend, the Education Department rolled out a redesigned website for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The site, FAFSA.gov, is easier to view on mobile devices, which an increasing number of students and families use to fill out the student aid form.

— The department is now eyeing mid-August to introduce a first version of a new student aid mobile app, FSA officials said. The “beta” version of the “myStudentAid” app will allow students and families to fill out the 2018-19 FAFSA. A more complete version with additional features will go live on Oct. 1 when the 2019-2020 FAFSA becomes available, officials said. The Trump administration eventually plans to make it possible for federal student loan borrowers to manage their monthly payments through the mobile app.

— The new website and mobile app are part of a larger effort to overhaul and modernize student aid, which DeVos announced last year.

— Changes to federal student loan collection: The Trump administration in February solicited proposals from companies to carry out its planned overhaul of how the federal government collects and manages the monthly payments of student loan borrowers. FSA officials said on Monday that they plan to award contracts for “major elements” of that plan — dubbed the “Next Generation Processing and Servicing Environment” — in 2019.

— Payment card pilot program: The Education Department is also moving ahead with plans to test a new way for students to receive student loan and Pell grant funds to pay for things like books and living expenses. The department in January said that it expected to start the pilot program in “late Spring 2018” for as many as 25,000 students. FSA officials said on Monday they expected to launch the payment card pilot program in the first quarter of fiscal 2019, which is this October through December.

SYLLABUS

— More former students sue University of Southern California over handling of sex harassment allegations: The Associated Press.

— Advocacy group sues over recently amended New York state law that relaxes standards for ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools: The Wall Street Journal.

— An enormous study of the genes related to staying in school: The Atlantic.

— Los Angeles school board member pleads guilty to conspiracy and resigns: The Los Angeles Times.

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