[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 62 (Wednesday, April 10, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2381-S2382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STRENGTHENING ACCOUNTABILITY TO PROTECT STUDENTS AND TAXPAYERS
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that a copy of
my opening statement at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions Committee be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Strengthening Accountability To Protect Students and Taxpayers
Mr. ALEXANDER. When I was president of the University of
Tennessee, I asked David Gardner, who was then president of
the University of California, why his university was
considered one of the best in the world. He told me: First,
autonomy. We basically have four branches of government, he
said, and one of them is the University of California.
Second, competition and choice--large amounts of state and
federal money following students to the campus of their
choice. Third, a commitment to excellence by institutional
leaders and faculty.
As a former university president, I am very much aware that
despite that autonomy, our country's 6,000 colleges and
universities report to a lot of bosses--they are accountable
to a great many individuals, boards, governments and other
entities.
First, they are accountable to the students who may take
their federal and state grants and loans to any accredited
institution that will admit them; next, to 44 federally
recognized accrediting agencies whose certification of
quality is necessary before institutions are allowed to
accept students who bring $30 billion in new Pell grants and
$100 billion in in federal student loans each year; to ensure
that these billions of dollars are spent wisely, the federal
government measures how many students default on their loans;
for the 80 percent of students who attend public colleges and
universities, states have governors, state legislators, laws,
and state higher education authorities; every institution,
public or private, also has its own board of trustees or
directors; and in addition, there are specific federal rules
for the for-profit institutions, which about five percent of
students attend, in order to stop fraud against students and
taxpayers; and when making a list of bosses, no former
university president should leave out the faculty--most
faculty members I have known take great pride in maintaining
institutional excellence.
So any president of an American higher education
institution has a lot of bosses and a lot of people to whom
he or she is accountable. And that has been a mostly
successful approach. Most surveys show that the United States
has most of the best colleges and universities in the world.
The dream of many of the best students from around the world
is to attend American colleges and universities. Still, I
hear often from students asking if college is worth their
time and money.
I believe there are steps we can take to make our higher
education institutions more accountable--to provide those
students, and the taxpayers backing their loans, with a clear
yes, college is worth it.
In March, at our first bipartisan hearing during this
Congress on updating the Higher Education Act, we looked at
how to simplify how 20 million families apply for federal
student aid. Last week, we held a bipartisan hearing about
how to create a safe environment for students attending
college.
Today's hearing will be looking at ways to ensure that
students are earning degrees worth their time and money and
that taxpayers are paid back the hundreds of billions that
they have loaned students to earn degrees.
To hold colleges accountable for the $130 billion a year in
grants and loans, in 1990, Congress created the Cohort
Default Rate, which applies to all colleges and universities.
This measure makes a college ineligible to receive federal
student aid if, for three consecutive years, more than 30
percent of its borrowers are in default or over 40 percent in
any one year. However this cohort default rate has proven to
be a poor instrument of accountability, since it does not
take into account the one third of borrowers who are not yet
in default but don't make payments on time. Over the last
decade, only 20 schools have become ineligible for federal
student aid under the Cohort Default Rate, according to the
Congressional Research Service.
And then there are two federal accountability rules that
apply only to for-profit institutions. One, the 90-10 rule,
which requires that at least ten percent of a for-profit's
revenue come from nonfederal sources; and two, the Gainful
Employment Rule, which looks at how much debt a graduate has
compared to his or her salary. This comparison of debt to
salary has proved to be a confusing and ineffective measure
of accountability because it is too complex and does not
account for students who take out loans but do not complete
their degrees. So we need a more effective measure of
accountability.
But I do not want the federal government acting as a sort
of National School Board for Colleges--telling states and
accreditors and boards of directors at institutions how to
manage the 6,000 colleges and universities. Four years ago,
this Committee passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which
reversed the trend towards a national school board for
elementary and secondary education. For the same reasons,
Washington should resist the urge to send thousands of
federal bureaucrats to evaluate our colleges and
universities, which would, in effect, create a national
school board for colleges.
Instead, Congress should create a new measure of
accountability that looks at whether students are actually
repaying their loans. This would be a more effective and
simpler way to ensure that taxpayers aren't financing degrees
that are priced so high and worth so little that students are
never able to pay back their loans. This proposal is much
like the Gainful Employment Rule--but it would apply to every
program at every college--public, private, and for-profit and
would include students who took out loans but dropped out
before graduating. For some programs, this new measure should
provide colleges with an incentive to lower tuition and help
their students stay in school to finish their degrees and
find a job so they can repay their loans.
A second step to improve accountability would be for the
federal government to make the data it collects from colleges
more useful to students and families. The Department has
struggled for years under all administrations to make such
information easily accessible to students and families. As we
work on updating the Higher Education Act, we first need to
identify what information schools actually need to report,
and second to provide direction to the Department on how to
make that information accessible and useful to students.
And third, we should strengthen the 44 federally recognized
accrediting agencies upon which we rely for certifying that
students are receiving a quality education. For example,
instead of requiring that accreditors
[[Page S2382]]
have a standard of ``student achievement,'' Congress could
more clearly require that accreditors measure whether
students are both learning and succeeding, but leave the
specific ways of measuring those to accreditors and
institutions.
Our goal needs to be to help students know that their
degrees are going to be worth their time and money and to
help taxpayers know that the federal government isn't
financing programs that do not provide students with a
valuable education.
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