[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 80 (Tuesday, May 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2809-S2810]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      STRENGTHENING ACCOUNTABILITY

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam 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

       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 6000 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 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

[[Page S2810]]

     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 non-federal 
     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 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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