Rise in student debt is driving action on the Hill

Tuesday's 95-to-0 Senate vote boosts financial aid for poor families.

from the July 26, 2007 edition

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Washington - Tuition sticker shock – a fact of life for many families putting children through college – and recent scandals involving the student-loan industry are pushing Congress to address financial-aid programs after years of delay.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted 95-to-0 to boost the amount of federal aid that a low-income student can receive, create a simpler aid application, and eliminate some conflicts of interest for the student-loan industry. Four days earlier, it trimmed subsidies to the industry and used much of the money for grants to low-income and other college students.

Now that the Senate struggle is over, advocacy groups are turning their attention to the House, where the pressure is on "to push this through," says David Baime, vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

The House has passed some of the same provisions regarding the student-loan industry but has yet to reauthorize the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), which governs nearly all higher education-related policy and related federal-aid programs.

The actions in the Senate "were a rare example of bipartisanship in an increasingly divided Congress," says Terry Hartle, vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, which supported the final version of the bill.

The bipartisan support was a far cry from the highly controversial debates over the HEA that have taken place over the last four years.

Congress is supposed to reauthorize the HEA every five years, and usually does so with little fanfare. But after it expired in 2003, the Senate repeatedly passed temporary extensions when it clashed with higher-education groups over regulation of the student-loan industry, the methods of accrediting institutions and transferring credit, and, in general, how involved the federal government should be in higher education issues.

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