[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 22, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H2895-H2898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMPROVING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION DATA FOR STUDENTS ACT
Mr. MESSER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 1949) to direct the Secretary of Education to convene the
Advisory Committee on Improving Postsecondary Education Data to conduct
a study on improvements to postsecondary education transparency at the
Federal level, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 1949
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Improving Postsecondary
Education Data for Students Act''.
SEC. 2. STUDY ON IMPROVEMENTS TO POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION
TRANSPARENCY AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL.
(a) Formation of Advisory Committee on Improving
Postsecondary Education Data.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 30 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Education shall
convene the Advisory Committee on Improving Postsecondary
Education Data (in this Act referred to as the ``Advisory
Committee''), which shall be comprised of 15 members who
represent economically, racially, and geographically diverse
populations appointed by the Secretary in consultation with
the Commissioner for Education Statistics, including--
(A) individuals representing different sectors of
institutions of higher education, including individuals
representing undergraduate and graduate education;
(B) experts in the field of higher education policy;
(C) State officials;
(D) students and other stakeholders from the higher
education community;
(E) representatives from the business community;
(F) experts in choice in consumer markets;
(G) privacy experts;
(H) college and career counselors at secondary schools;
(I) experts in data policy, collection, and use; and
(J) experts in labor markets.
(2) Chairperson.--The Secretary shall appoint the
Chairperson of the Advisory Committee.
(b) Study Required.--The Advisory Committee shall conduct a
study examining--
(1) the types of information, including information related
to costs of postsecondary education, sources of financial
assistance (including Federal student loans), student
outcomes, and postgraduation earnings, the Federal Government
should collect and report on institutions of higher education
to assist students and families in their search for an
institution of higher education;
(2) how such information should be collected and reported,
including how to disaggregate information on student outcomes
by subgroups of students, such as full-time students, part-
time students, nontraditional students, first generation
college students, students who are veterans, and Federal Pell
Grant recipients under subpart 1 of part A of title IV of the
Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1070a); and
(3) the ways in which the Federal Government may make such
information more readily available to--
(A) students and their families in a format that is easily
accessible and understandable, and will aid students and
their families in making decisions; and
(B) States, local governments, secondary schools,
individual or groups of institutions of higher education, and
private-sector entities.
(c) Scope of Study.--In conducting the study under this
Act, the Advisory Committee shall, at a minimum, examine--
(1) whether the current Federal transparency initiatives on
postsecondary education--
(A) are reporting consistent information about individual
institutions of higher education across Federal agencies; and
(B) are similar to transparency initiatives on
postsecondary education carried out by States, individual or
groups of institutions of higher education, or private-sector
entities;
(2) whether--
(A) the collection and reporting of postgraduation earnings
by the Federal Government is feasible, and if feasible, the
options for collecting and reporting such information;
(B) collecting and reporting such information would improve
the use of Federal transparency initiatives and ease
decisionmaking for students and their families; and
(C) collecting and reporting such information would have an
impact on student privacy, and if so, how such impact may be
minimized;
(3) whether any other information, including information
relating to student outcomes or identified under the review
required under subsection (d), should be collected and
reported by the Federal Government to improve the utility of
such initiatives for students and their families, and if so,
how such information may be collected and reported, including
whether the information should be disaggregated by subgroups
of students;
(4) whether any information currently collected and
reported by the Federal Government on institutions of higher
education is not useful for students and their families and
should not be so collected and reported;
(5) the manner in which the information from Federal
transparency initiatives is made available to students and
their families, and whether format changes may help the
information become more easily understood and widely utilized
by students and their families;
(6) any activities being carried out by the Federal
Government, States, individual or groups of institutions of
higher education, or private-sector entities to help inform
students and their families of the availability of Federal
transparency initiatives;
(7) the cost to institutions of higher education of
reporting to the Federal Government the information that is
being collected and reported through Federal transparency
initiatives, and how such cost may be minimized; and
(8) the relevant research described in subsection (d).
(d) Review of Relevant Research.--In conducting the study
under this Act, the Advisory Committee shall review and
consider--
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(1) research and studies, if any, that have been conducted
to determine questions most frequently asked by students and
families to help inform their search for an institution of
higher education;
(2) the types of information students seek before enrolling
in an institution of higher education;
(3) whether the availability to students and their families
of additional information on institutions of higher education
will be beneficial or confusing;
(4) results, if any, that are available from consumer
testing of Federal, State, institution of higher education,
and private-sector transparency initiatives on postsecondary
education that have been made publicly available on or after
the date that is 10 years before the date of enactment of
this Act; and
(5) any gaps in the research, studies, and results
described in paragraphs (1) and (4) relating to the types of
information students seek before enrolling in an institution
of higher education.
(e) Consultation.--
(1) In general.--In conducting the study under this Act,
the Advisory Committee shall--
(A) hold public hearings to consult with parents and
students; and
(B) consult with a broad range of interested parties in
higher education, including appropriate researchers,
representatives of secondary schools (including college and
career counselors) and institutions of higher education from
different sectors of such institutions (including
undergraduate and graduate education), State administrators,
and Federal officials.
(2) Consultation with the authorizing committees.--The
Advisory Committee shall consult on a regular basis with the
authorizing committees in conducting the study under this
Act.
(f) Reports to Authorizing Committees.--
(1) Interim report.--Not later than 180 days after the date
of enactment of this Act, the Advisory Committee shall
prepare and submit to the authorizing committees and the
Secretary an interim report describing the progress made in
conducting the study under this Act and any preliminary
findings on the topics identified under subsection (c).
(2) Final report.--
(A) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Advisory Committee shall prepare
and submit to the authorizing committees and the Secretary a
final report on the study, including--
(i) recommendations for legislative, regulatory, and
administrative actions based on findings related to the
topics identified under subsection (c); and
(ii) a summary of the research described in subsection (d).
(B) Consultation with NCES.--The Advisory Committee shall
consult with the Commissioner of Education Statistics prior
to making recommendations under subparagraph (A)(i) with
respect to improving the information being collected and
reported by the Federal Government on institutions of higher
education.
(g) Availability of Funds.--The amount necessary to conduct
the study under this Act shall be made available from amounts
available to the Secretary for administrative expenses of the
Department of Education.
(h) Definitions.--For purposes of this Act:
(1) Authorizing committees.--The term ``authorizing
committees'' has the meaning given the term in section 103 of
the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1003).
(2) First generation college student.--The term ``first
generation college student'' has the meaning given the term
in section 402A(h) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 1070a-11(h)).
(3) Institution of higher education.--The term
``institution of higher education'' has the meaning given the
term in section 102 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 1002), except that such term does not include
institutions described in subsection (a)(1)(C) of such
section 102.
(4) Secondary school.--The term ``secondary school'' has
the meaning given the term in section 9101 of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7801).
(5) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary
of Education.
(6) State.--The term ``State'' has the meaning given the
term in section 103 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 1003).
(7) Student.--The term ``student'' includes--
(A) a prospective student;
(B) a student enrolled in an institution of higher
education;
(C) a nontraditional student (as defined in section
803(j)(2) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C.
1161c(j)(2))); and
(D) a veteran (as defined in section 480(c)(1) of such Act
(20 U.S.C. 1087vv(c)(1))) who is a student or prospective
student.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. Messer) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana.
General Leave
Mr. MESSER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on
H.R. 1949.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Indiana?
There was no objection.
Mr. MESSER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in support of H.R. 1949, the Improving Postsecondary Education
Data for Students Act. I want to thank Chairman Kline and Higher
Education Subcommittee Chairwoman Foxx for their work on and support of
this measure. I also want to commend Ranking Member Miller,
Subcommittee Ranking Member Hinojosa, and our Democratic committee
colleagues for their contributions to this bill.
Few decisions in life are bigger than whether to attend college and
which college to attend, yet many families struggle to wade through the
complicated maze of statistics available to find the information they
need to make fully informed, cost-conscious decisions. Consequently,
they may choose schools or programs that don't meet their needs and
leave them with high debt and limited career potential.
Despite Federal efforts to improve data collection and transparency
in the higher education system, families and students still struggle,
and institutions of higher learning are spending more time and money
than ever. During the 2012-2013 academic year, institutions spent an
estimated 850,000 man-hours and almost $31 million to fill out required
Federal surveys. Higher education leaders have highlighted several of
these requirements as duplicative to State and local transparency
efforts and may partially contribute to the increase in college costs.
Through the Improving Postsecondary Education Data for Students Act,
we hope to simplify this process and help ensure students can access
the information they need to make good decisions while lessening the
burden on colleges and universities that have far too many reporting
requirements today. The bill would require the Department of Education
to evaluate the information colleges and universities are required to
provide to determine what helps make students better consumers and what
simply buries them in paper--and the schools they attend in paper, as
well.
The information yielded by this report will play a critical role in
assisting the Education and Workforce Committee's efforts to
reauthorize the Higher Education Act. We need to ensure students have
the information they actually need in a user-friendly manner to help
them make the best decisions they can.
We also must streamline the current regulatory burden of unnecessary
and unhelpful reporting requirements imposed on institutions of higher
education. This bill will help guide that process.
I urge all of our colleagues to support the Improving Postsecondary
Education Data for Students Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I'm pleased to rise in support of the gentleman's legislation. I
think it's an example of how we can work together and achieve a benefit
for the American people. I commend him for introducing the bill and
would outline our reasons for our support.
Probably the second largest expenditure most Americans make in their
lifetime is a college education for themselves or for their children,
second only to their real estate, to the home that they buy. It's
surprising how little consumer information is available to families
before they make that choice.
If you buy a phone, you can find out what apps it can run, how much
bandwidth it has, how much it can store, what it can do, what it can't
do. You can find all this information about what the phone cost, what
it does, and how it works. But if you're about to enroll in a school
that purports to teach Web site design, or if you're about to send your
son or daughter off to a college to major in philosophy or engineering,
it's surprising how little you know about that school.
The gentleman's proposal is that there be an effort by the Department
of Education to make those data more accessible and more transparent
for students and their families, questions that are natural to ask:
What does it cost to go to the school? What happens to students when
they graduate from the
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school? What kind of jobs do they get? How much money do they make? How
much debt do they graduate with? Who transfers in and out of the school
and what numbers? How many people finish their education at the
schools?
I'm not suggesting that there is any one-size-fits-all list of
questions, that it's the right list of questions. What I'm suggesting
is that the maximum amount of information should be available to
families and students to make reasonable decisions about this sort of
thing.
The only comment that I would make further is that we would
encourage, Mr. Speaker, the committee leadership to consider bipartisan
legislation--that's been sponsored by Mr. Duncan Hunter, Jr., on the
majority side; I'm involved in it on the minority side; and the other
body, it's sponsored by Senators Wyden and Warner, along with Senator
Rubio--that would create this kind of information in a user-friendly,
Web-based environment as soon as possibly could be done.
{time} 1910
I view this bill as complementary to this effort, and I look forward
to working with the gentleman and the other leaders of the committee on
this issue.
I would finally say that, on our side, we do strongly believe that
the time has come for a full reauthorization of the Higher Education
Act. There are a myriad of issues. Tomorrow, we will have student loan
financing issues on the floor. There are questions about Pell Grants,
the cost of college and numerous other issues that we think are best
dealt with in an omnibus and comprehensive fashion.
Having said that, we commend the gentleman for his introduction of
the bill, urge its support, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MESSER. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his comments
and his leadership on this important topic. It's certainly a pleasure
to work with you on this bill and on the other bills that you
mentioned.
I would now like to yield 1 minute to my good friend, the gentleman
from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for his leadership and for bringing
this bill forward. I appreciate the ranking member's support on this as
well.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the Improving Postsecondary
Education Data for Students Act.
American moms and dads are working tirelessly to help their children
achieve their dreams. For many, that dream includes college. However,
the cost of a postsecondary education has become increasingly difficult
for a lot of families to bear. Young graduates today are not only
confronting a tough job market when they leave school, they are
continually facing a growing mountain of debt that is financially
burdensome and extremely difficult to pay back. Many students choose
schools and their majors without ever knowing the earning potential of
their fields of study. This leaves many young Americans with a lower
than expected income and struggling to pay down their loans once they
graduate. For some, it can take decades. This has got to change.
In my home State of Virginia, we've become a leader in attempting to
address this problem. In 2012, Virginia enacted a requirement that
schools in our State publish information regarding the proportion of
graduates with employment, their average salaries and higher education
debt at 18 months and 5 years after graduation.
I expect that this data will become extremely useful to parents and
students alike. Unfortunately, the data available to Virginia is
limited to graduates who remain in the Commonwealth. This means that
information available in the State database fails to fully capture
students that graduate from a school, like the University of Richmond,
which attracts students from 46 different States. Very often, they go
on to take jobs throughout the country where they become leaders in
their fields.
We can help resolve this situation. The Federal Government currently
has a significant amount of data that could help parents and students
make better decisions regarding the financial benefits of prospective
schools and majors, but this information is often hard to understand or
is difficult to access.
This bill requires the Secretary of Education to convene a 15-member
advisory panel to provide recommendations on how to improve the
information available to parents and students when deciding on their
schools and majors. This panel will provide an interim report within 6
months and a final one within 1 year for Congress' consideration during
the reauthorization of the Higher Ed Act.
This legislation will serve to kick-start the process of improving
transparency in higher education and will provide students and parents
with the information that they need to make informed decisions so that
a college education can continue to be a source of empowerment for
millions of Americans. This bill is a great step in the right
direction.
I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Messer) for his
leadership, Chairman John Kline, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, and the rest
of the Education and the Workforce Committee for their work on this
issue, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. ANDREWS. I would just ask my friend, Mr. Speaker, if he has any
other speakers.
Mr. MESSER. I have two others.
Mr. ANDREWS. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MESSER. I yield such time as she may consume to my friend and
colleague from the great State of Indiana (Mrs. Brooks).
Mrs. BROOKS of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support
of the Improving Postsecondary Education Data for Students Act.
I am the mother of a current college student and a recent college
graduate as well as a former general counsel and senior vice president
at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. I personally and
professionally understand the difficult and often life-defining
decisions our young people make when they decide where to attend
college. Students want to make the most educated decisions they can,
but currently, they struggle to access and process all of the data they
need to make the best decisions for themselves and their futures, and
it's not because there is a lack of data being reported.
Currently, the Federal Government requires colleges and universities
to report overwhelming amounts of information. As Congressman Messer
has already said, rather than having institutions across the country
spend over 850,000 hours and almost $31 million to fill out all of
these required Federal surveys, why not allow our higher ed
institutions to spend those hours and those dollars doing a better job
serving our students in classrooms, advising students and figuring out
ways to lower tuition costs? The problem is that the Federal Government
is not requiring the right information and putting it in a readable and
understandable format for students.
This bill directs the Department of Education to conduct a survey on
which factors students and families want and need when researching
their postsecondary options. It's common sense. I appreciate that it's
a bipartisan piece of legislation that will benefit students and our
higher ed institutions. This bill is simple, and it helps Congress
improve transparency as we approach the reauthorization of the Higher
Education Act.
I applaud the work of my fellow Hoosier and colleague Mr. Messer, and
I urge the adoption of this important bill.
Mr. ANDREWS. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MESSER. I would now like to yield 2 minutes to my good friend
from Georgia (Mr. Collins).
Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this
legislation.
I have a personal take on this. I have a 17-year-old son, Copeland,
and my wife and I are in the process of guiding him through the
difficult and often complex process of choosing a higher education
institution to attend.
As families across America know, there are a lot of factors to
consider when assessing what institution will provide my son with the
best opportunity to graduate college and be set on a path to
professionally succeed. In this economy, our children deserve the best
possible chance we can give them to find jobs that will allow them to
provide for themselves and their future families.
The key to good decisionmaking is having accurate information, and
this
[[Page H2898]]
legislation will provide my son Copeland and all of the other students
of northeast Georgia with the best possible data that they and their
parents can use to select the right postsecondary education paths for
them.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill, and I would
like to thank the gentleman from Indiana for his leadership. The nature
in which we bring this forward is a positive solution for our country
and is a positive solution for the families looking at this decision of
higher education.
Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, in closing, this is an example of how we
can work together and accomplish something constructive for the
American people. I am pleased to support this bill, and I would urge a
``yes'' vote.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. MESSER. I am a former State legislator from Indiana. They used to
say on the House floor back there, ``Good bill. Should pass,'' and it's
great when you have the opportunity to work together across the aisle
on a bill that just makes sense.
My colleague from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) made the comment that
there is a lot of data out there for families but that there is a
difference between data and information. Our goal with this bill is to
help bring this data together, to get past the data dump and to try to
get families the information they need while at the same time lessening
the regulatory burden on our colleges and universities. They're doing
the best they can with limited resources as well.
So, with that, I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield
back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Messer) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 1949, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________