[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 4, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1298-S1300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ASSOCIATION OF PRIVATE SECTOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record a copy of my remarks to the Association of Private Sector
Colleges and Universities.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities
Our nation is home to the world's greatest system of
colleges and universities. From the beginning, federal policy
has been to give grants and loans to students and let them
choose from among all types of institutions--public four-year
universities, community colleges, for-profit colleges, and
private non-profits.
For example, students can study automobile technology at
Nashville's auto diesel school or forensic psychology at
Argosy University or computer information systems at DeVry
University.
Student choice and competition are the drivers of American
higher education's success. And an important participant in
American higher education has always been our for-profit
colleges and universities.
The students served by for-profit colleges underscore their
importance. Nearly 2,100 institutions educate 3.3 million
students representing, approximately 12 percent of all
college enrollments, 1.8 million Pell students and 1.9
million federal loan borrowers. More than half of enrollments
are students of color. Fifty percent of students are juggling
school with children. More than a third of these students are
working full-time while going to school. For-profits
accounted for 44 percent of certificates, 20 percent of two-
year associate's degrees and 7 percent of bachelor's degrees
granted in the United States in 2012.
The President along with many governors and state
legislatures are setting goals to increase the number of
citizens with college degrees or certificates. Governor
Haslam in Tennessee has an ambitious goal called Drive to 55,
to see 55 percent of Tennesseans with degrees or certificates
by 2025. The president has called for America to have the
highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.
The only way to achieve these goals is to include all
sectors of higher education, including for-profit colleges
and universities. Yet this administration has taken aim at
the for-profit sector, and has created regulations
specifically targeting your colleges and universities.
My view is that our policies should equally apply to all
institutions of higher education, no matter the sector. There
are bad apples in the for-profit sector--but there are bad
apples in every sector of higher education.
So let me begin to describe my priorities for all sectors
of higher education, which includes your colleges and
universities:
1) Make it easier for students to go to college (FAST Act)
2) Make it simpler for colleges and universities to educate
(Task Force on Regulation)
3) Make sure that accreditation ensures quality
(Accreditation)
4) Make it harder to overborrow (FAST Act, Skin in the
Game)
5) Make sure colleges are collecting useful data for
students, families and policymakers (Consumer Data)
These are my priorities as we work over the next few months
to reauthorize this law and ensure that 20 years from now,
our colleges and universities still remain the best in the
world in the quality of education they provide.
Number one, make it simpler for colleges and universities
to educate. Today we have a government form so complicated
and confusing that it discourages as many as 2 million
Americans from attending college each year. This is the
dreaded FAFSA--the Free Application for Federal Student Aid--
which consists of 108 questions on topics ranging from your
spouse's federal tax exemptions to the net worth of your
parents' investment farms.
I have joined with a bipartisan group of senators to
introduce legislation that would simplify the FAFSA form to
just two questions--1) What was your household income two
years ago? 2) What is your family size?
Four experts before our committee testified that these two
questions would provide about 95 percent of all the
information the federal government needs to determine award
amounts.
It would also make the process, as much as the questions,
less intimidating for parents. Because our bill would ask for
household income from two years ago--as opposed to last
year's income--it would restore sanity to the parents of
applicants who are often being asked to provide the
government with their income totals before they've even
received their W-2s for the year.
One mentor with Governor Haslam's Tennessee Promise
program, a woman named Cathy Hammon, says the form has a
``chilling effect''--intimidating parents who may themselves
never have attended college, and have no experience
navigating the process. She says this: ``It's the very youth
we worry about the most that struggle with it.''
The FAST Act would also restore year-round Pell
availability. This gives students common-sense flexibility.
According to a study by New America, under today's Pell
schedule: ``If a student attends a college that treats the
summer as the start of the year, receives Pell Grants as a
full-time student in that summer, and then attends full-time
in the fall, she will not have enough aid to attend full-time
in the spring.'' That doesn't make sense and it doesn't help
students. So our proposal would let them use Pell all year.
Number two, make it simpler for colleges and universities
to educate.
Over a year ago, Vanderbilt University hired the Boston
Consulting Group to determine how much it costs the
university to comply with federal rules and regulations. The
answer: $150 million, or 11 percent of the university's total
non-hospital expenditures last year. Vanderbilt Chancellor
Nick Zeppos says that this adds about $11,000 in additional
tuition per year for each of the university's 12,757
students.
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The Higher Education Act totals nearly 1,000 pages; there
are over 1,000 pages in the official Code of Federal
Regulations devoted to higher education; and on average every
workday the Department of Education issues one new sub-
regulatory guidance directive or clarification. No one has
taken the time to ``weed the garden.''
The result of this piling up of regulations is that one of
the greatest obstacles to innovation and cost consciousness
in higher education has become--us, the federal government.
A conspicuous example of this is the Gainful Employment
regulation. It's a perfect symbol of what's wrong with our
regulatory process that the Administration needed nearly 945
pages to define a two-word phrase that has been in the higher
education law in one form or another since 1965.
What's especially concerning about the regulation is--
First, the rule is designed to almost exclusively impact
and penalize for-profit colleges and universities. It
selectively ignores concerns about student loan debt levels
across all sectors of higher education.
The Department of Education's own National Center for
Education Statistics reports that 26% of graduates from
public, four-year colleges and 39% of graduates from private,
four-year colleges would not be considered ``gainfully
employed'' using the Department's metrics. It seems
ridiculous that this regulation could shut down a nursing
program at a for-profit institution but not one in exactly
the same circumstances at a non-profit or public institution.
Second, the rule's complex debt-to-income ratios over-
emphasize a graduate's income right after college. This is
especially shortsighted for educational programs that hold an
important public benefit such as education or social work,
but don't result in early-career, high-paying salaries.
Third, this regulation has nothing to do with the quality
of the education being provided. It simply relies on
arbitrary government definitions of affordable student loan
debt. What would be the result? More than 800,000 students
will be kicked out of their programs at a time when many
public colleges are unable to accommodate more students.
This simply isn't a good regulation and I think the
Administration knows I'll do what it takes to oppose it. I've
cosponsored legislation by Richard Burr and Virginia Foxx to
overturn the gainful employment regulation, and other
regulations that are equally ill advised. I led a letter
signed by several of my colleagues opposing the proposed
regulations, and I am prepared to offer an amendment to
restrict funds from being used to implement the rule. As we
approach the rewrite of the Higher Education Act, I intend to
do what I can to prohibit the Department from implementing
this regulation and treat all institutions equally.
This is just one example of regulatory excess.
And when it comes to bad regulations, let me make clear: we
cannot just blame President Obama and Education Secretary
Arne Duncan. They have contributed to the problem, but so has
every president and every education secretary--and that
includes me--since 1965 when the first Higher Education Act
was enacted.
More than a year ago, four members of the Senate education
committee--two Democrats and two Republicans--asked a group
of distinguished educators to examine the current state of
federal rules and regulations for colleges and universities.
We asked them not just to tell us the problem, but to give us
specific solutions.
They last month sent to us, ``Recalibrating Regulation of
Colleges and Universities,'' a remarkable report in which
they outline 59 specific regulations, requirements and areas
for Congress and the Department of Education to consider--
listing 10 especially problematic regulations. In their own
words, America's 6,000 colleges and universities live in a
``jungle of red tape'' that is expensive and confusing and
unnecessary.
So with this reauthorization of the Higher Education Act,
Ranking Member Murray and I will work on a process that takes
full advantage of the recommendations in this report so we
can include many of them in the reauthorization of the Higher
Education Act.
But the bottom line is that regulations are taking good
money away from educating students and performing research
and all sorts of other things colleges and universities ought
to be doing.
We won't let that happen again with this reauthorization.
Number three, make sure that accreditation ensures quality.
Our higher education system today is governed by what's
known as the ``triad'':
The federal government, which ensures that colleges and
universities have the fiscal and administrative capability to
participate in federal aid programs.
The state governments--governor, legislature, state boards
of education--that authorize institutions of higher
education, oversee public institutions, and provide
substantial public funding.
Finally, and perhaps most important, is the accreditation
system.
The system also has one other major check, the student
consumer--who is able to choose from over 6,000 colleges and
universities, and ideally is unlikely to waste their time and
money on a worthless degree. When it comes to ensuring
academic quality--the choice is this: Either we have
Washington regulate our over 6,000 colleges and universities,
or we let them self-regulate through accreditation. I much
prefer accreditation.
That does not mean our system of accreditation is problem-
free. Today, accreditors meddle in areas that are none of
their business. And sometimes they're too stuffy to allow
some of the innovation that needs to come in education. We
need to take a hard look at the system and the role it serves
for the American taxpayer.
We need to answer questions, such as:
Are accreditors focused on the right things such as student
learning and quality?
Does the current structure of regional accreditation make
sense in today's world when higher education is increasingly
national in scope?
Are federal rules and regulations on accreditors getting in
the way of their ability to asses and ensure academic
quality?
But we need to keep in mind that this system is far
preferable to any regulatory body created by the federal
government.
Number four, make it harder for students to over-borrow.
There's a lot of discussion about student debt in the
United States, but when you drill down on who's really got so
much debt: It's a very small contingent of mostly graduate
students. For most Americans, college is a good investment
that will pay off.
Three out of four of our college students attend a public
2- or 4-year college and university. Of those, about two out
of five of all students attend community colleges where the
average tuition and fees are under $3,300. Those students
receive an average of $4,850 in grants and scholarships. So
the average community college student in America is receiving
about $1,500 more in grants and scholarships than what it
costs in tuition and fees to attend college.
Thirty-seven percent of all of our college students attend
public 4-year universities. The average in-state tuition and
fees is about $8,900. Those students receive in average
$5,800 in grants and scholarships. We're not talking loans,
so they have to pay $3,100 on average, in tuition and fees.
And then we have students who attend 4-year colleges that
are private. That's about 15 percent. Their average tuition
and fees are $30,000 but the scholarships and grants take
that down to $12,500. At for-profit colleges and
universities, the average cost is about $15,000.
About 2 percent of federal borrowers have more than
$100,000 in debt. Graduate students are typically the
problem.
The FAST Act would discourage over-borrowing by limiting
the amount a graduate student is able to borrow. It would
also help undergraduates from borrowing too much, by limiting
borrowing based on enrollment. For example, a part-time
student would be able to take out a part time loan only.
In addition, my proposal would allow institutions to limit
borrowing based on evidence that students completing the
program have difficulty repaying their loans.
I would also like to give schools more ability to counsel
students on borrowing. Many in Congress are concerned with
students borrowing more than is necessary while attending
college and anecdotal examples of increased institutional
counseling has led to reduced borrowing by students.
I believe that the institution, especially if we give you
the ability to counsel students and limit borrowing, should
bear some responsibility for this borrowing--after all you
are the ones charging these students. However, I am seeking
your input on this topic. Some of your members, as well as
the association itself, have talked with me and my staff
about this topic. I hope those discussions continue.
Number five, make sure the data colleges are collecting are
useful for students, families and policymakers.
Before we rewrite this law, we need to know what
information consumers actually find useful as they shop for
schools, how much information is too much and what is the
role of the federal government.
The federal government collects thousands of data points
annually on schools, yet still cannot answer some of
policymakers and students basic questions. In the future,
Department of Education should only collect data that is
useful to consumers or to policymakers regarding how well our
federal programs are working. Consumers nor policymakers are
able to absorb all of the data currently collected.
This is a prime area to reduce institutional burden. So we
need to determine what information is truly needed. That may
mean collecting new and different data that better fulfills
federal responsibilities to taxpayers and drives the free
market which makes our country and higher education system
number one.
It is also important to ensure that the Department is not
allowed to manipulate this data to create opaque,
inappropriate or contrived metrics such as recently happened
with cohort default rates and gainful employment, and will
more than likely occur in the forthcoming ratings system.
I look forward to the upcoming reauthorization. Senator
Murray and I are working very well in moving a fix to No
Child Left Behind and I see no reason why the Higher
Education Act will be any different. I intend to move to this
bill this spring after we complete Senate action on No Child
Left Behind. We will hold several hearings before holding a
mark-up of a reauthorization early this summer. I look
forward to continuing to work with you as the process
unfolds. Thank you for everything you have done to be helpful
so far and for providing opportunity to those seeking a
higher education.
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