Author Archives: garverj

Obama Accelerates Relief for Student Borrowers

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On Wednesday President Obama announced new executive actions to lower student loan payments for federal student loans. These changes do not include private student loans.

The initiative accelerates an income-based repayment plan that reduces the maximum required payment on student loans to 10 percent of annual income. The measure was suppose to go into effect in 2014.

In addition the Obama Administration announced a program to allow borrowers to consolidate their loans and get a lower interest rate.

Higher Education Loses Strong Advocate

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Over the weekend it was announced that Washington State Senator Scott White passed away.  His passing is a great loss to higher education and the State of Washington.

Senator White was a strong and passionate advocate for higher education and Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions. He excelled at communicating complex policy issues on a personal and pragmatic level that was understood by multiple audiences. He was a positive and optimistic leader for higher education. His door was always open to all and he treated anyone who entered with respect, kindness, and a great sense of humor.

This is echoed in the many comments made by his colleagues over the last couple of days.

State Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said White was a young politician that many viewed as having immense potential — perhaps someone to be in Congress or Senate Majority Leader. He worked well with people across the political spectrum and had a fresh approach to politics that the public desired, Murray said.

“What stood out was that he was ambitious but he was positive,” Murray said. “He wasn’t ambitious and divisive. Scott wanted to figure out how to be progressive and how to move forward in a positive way.”

Gov. Chris Gregoire said White was never afraid to tackle difficult problems.

“I found him to be an absolute pleasure to work with, and a legislator who served his district and the entire state well,” Gregoire said. “He had a bright and promising future ahead of him.”

White served one-term in the Washington House and then was elected to the Senate in 2010.  He represented the 46th District which covers northern parts of Seattle. During his time in the House White served as a member of the House Higher Education Committee. In the Senate, White served as a member of the Senate Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee,  as the Senate Majority Whip and Vice Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee.

Though Senator White was strongly committed  to his role as a Senator, White’s priority was his family. White is survived by his wife and two small children.

“Above all, Scott’s greatest legacy and source of pride was his family,” Sen. Derek Kilmer said. “He was deeply committed to his wife and two young children, and took great joy in the life they built together.” 

A public service for Senator White is expected this week.

 

House Higher Education Committee Hearings

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This past week the House Higher Education convened the fourth of five committee hearings focused on educational attainment and regional industries.

The House Higher Education Committee met most recently at Skagit Valley Community College in Mt. Vernon. The focus of the meeting was innovation and its role in educational attainment in Washington. In addition higher education institutions, including Western Washington University, hosted regional industry panels that focused on the connections between higher education, workforce, and industry.

The day before the Committee met in Seattle to learn more about completion and its role in educational attainment as well as here from regional industry representatives. The Evergreen State College and the University of Washington, along with the Council of Presidents, participated from the public, bacclauareate sector.  Evergreen was represented on two panels. Paul Pryzbylowicz presented on higher education institutional initiatives to increase student completion and Libby Dunkin, an Evergreen alum and VP for Operations for Flux Drive, participated in the higher education and regional industry needs panel on manufacturing.

Prior to the meetings last week the Committee traveled to Spokane and Ellensburg in September to discuss two issues as they related to educational attainment: (1) outcomes for underserved populations and (2) transitions to college.  Each meeting the Committee heard from  regional higher education institutions and industry.

The next meeting of the House Higher Education Committee is scheduled for November 2 at South Puget Sound Community College.

Governor Convenes Second Meeting of Higher Education Steering Committee

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This week the Governor convened the second meeting of the Higher Education Steering Committee charged to establish the Council for Higher Education.

The Committee focused on the structure and goals of education in Washington. The Committee took time to discuss the various goals that have been charged each sector of education ranging from early learning to higher education.

The Committee then spent a considerable amount of time hearing about and discussing potential roles for the new Council of Higher Education. Committee members received a presentation by Aims McGuinness from the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems on the roles of higher education state-level entities in other states. The Committee combined there discussion of potential roles with a final conversation about potential functions of a new state level entity. 

The next meeting of the Steering Committee is scheduled for October 27.

Pell Grant: U.S. House and Senate Proposals

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The U.S. Congress is still working to finalize funding for fiscal year 2012, despite the fact that the fiscal year began on October 1.  In the meantime Congress has passed a continuing resolution to keep agencies and programs operating at fiscal year 2011 levels until a FY12 budget is passed, which is expected later this year.

Since 2009 Congress has provided new rounds of ad-hoc funding to maintain the increased maximum grant level established in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  The new grant level continues to be a challenge for Congress. Since 2009 Congress has supported the increase in the grant through various efforts including:

  • Elimination of the guaranteed student loan program (2010)
  • Elimination of the “year-round” Pell Grant (2011)
  • Elimination of the interest-free benefit on subsidized federal loans for graduate students (2011)

In order for Congress to maintain the current maximum Pell Grant ($5,550 per year) it must appropriate $24.3 billion for FY12. This is an increase of $1.3 billion from FY11.

An examination of the House and Senate proposals (i.e. the release of the Labor-HHS-Education appropriation bills) shows the multiple ways each chamber is attempting to reach the fiscal target to maintain the Pell Grant. The different approaches leave room for a compromise in a final omnibus appropriations bill.

U.S. Senate

The U.S. Senate’s proposed appropration bill (S. 1599) would appropriate the full $24.3 billion to maintain the maximum grant in the 2012-13 academic year. The funding is offset by eliminating the interest-free benefit on Subsidized Stafford loans during an undergraduate borrower’s six-month grace period after leaving school. This would create savings of $1 billion which is allocated to support the 2013 Pell Grant and another $3.5 billion for the program between 2017-2021.

U.S. House

The U.S. House’s appropration bill does not add funding to the Pell grant and actually cuts funding when compared to FY11. The caveat being that the bill would still maintain the maximum grant of $5,550 in the 2012-13 academic year. The bill maintains the maximum grant by making significant changes to Pell Grant eligibility rules. These changes include:

  • Reducing he maximum number of semesters a student can receive a Pell Grant from 18 to 12
  • Eliminating eligibility for students that are attending school less than half-time
  • Reducing the amount of a student’s personal earnings that can be excluded from a Pell Grant award calculation
  • Reducing the maximum family income that would automatically qualify a student for the maximum grant from $30,000 to $15,000.
  • Eliminate eligibility for students who quality for less than 10% of the maximum grant.

These changes would lower the appropraiton needed to fund a maximum grant of $5,550 by $3.6 billion in 2012 and about $4 billion each year thereafter because fewer students would be eligible for grants and some students would receive smaller grants.

Governor Convenes First Meeting to Establish the Council for Higher Education

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This week marked the first meeting of the Higher Education Steering Committee charged to establish the Council for Higher Education.

In the 2011 legislative session the Washington Legislature passed Senate Bill 5182 which eliminates the Higher Education Coordinating Board on July 1, 2012 and creates the Council for Higher Education and the Office of Student Financial Assistance.

The legislation established the Higher Education Steering Committee, chaired by Governor Gregoire, to make recommendations regarding the functions and purpose of the Council for Higher Education.

The meeting served to introduce committee members and to provide context and background information. The Committee spent a good part of the meeting engaged with Dennis Jones and Aims McGuinness,  National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, around the topic of higher education governance in the United States.

The committee also reviewed the possible state-level higher education governance functions that may be established under the Council of Higher Education. This will serve as a foundation for future discussions regarding the essential functions that should be performed at the state level.

The next meeting of the Steering Committee is scheduled for October 10.

HECB Meets with An Eye to the Future

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On Thursday the Higher Education Coordinating Board held their monthly meeting in Olympia. 

The Board received an update from the State Economist on Washington’s economic and revenue forecast and  the impact to higher education.

The majority of the meeting was focused on current efforts to update the Strategic Master Plan for  higher education in Washington. The HECB is required to update its Strategic Master Plan four years after its development in 2008.

A handful of business, community and institutional representatives shared their perspectives with a focus on three key questions:

  • What are the looming policy issues for higher education over the next three to five years?
  • What should compromise the “public agenda” for higher education in Washington?
  • Where should the state focus our scarce resources to make progress toward increasing education attainment?

The representatives included David Fisher (Washington Roundtable), George Scarola (League of Education Voters), David Zeeck (The News Tribune), Jim Fridley (UW Professor/Council of Faculty Representatives), Mike Bogatay (Washington Student Association), Lloyd Butler (Pacific Northwest University), and faculty and students from the community and technical colleges.

U.S. House Releases Education Appropriations Bill

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Today the U.S. House Appropriations Committee their  draft fiscal year 2012 Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) funding bill. The legislation includes funding for programs within the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and other related agencies.

In total, the draft bill includes $153.4 billion in discretionary funding, which is $4 billion (-2.5%) below the fiscal year 2011 enacted level and $27.5 billion (-15.2%) below the President’s budget request. The funding levels reflect the overall change in fiscal year 2012 discretionary spending to $1.043 trillion – the amount to which the House, Senate, and White House agreed in the recent debt ceiling legislation.

The Department of Education is funded at $69 billion in the legislation, which is $2.4 billion (-3%) below last year’s level and $11.5 billion (-14%) below the budget request. The bill eliminates more than 30 programs that are duplicative, inefficient, or unauthorized, including the Administration’s “Race to the Top” program.

  • Title I Program – These basic grants to local school districts that help all children become proficient in reading and math are funded at $15.5 billion, which is $1 billion above last year’s level.
  • Pell Grants– The maximum Pell Grant award is continued at $5,550. In addition, the bill includes reforms to the program to reduce costs by $3.6 billion in the next year alone. These reforms include: limiting the lifetime eligibility for Pell Grants to 6 years (down from 9 years); rolling back recent and unnecessary changes to the qualification formula; eliminating eligibility for students who attend school less than half time or students who do not have a high school diploma or GED; and better targeting the funding to the neediest students.
  • Special Education – Special Education grants to states are funded at $12.7 billion in the legislation – an increase of $1.2 billion above last year’s level. This will raise the federal percentage of special education funding from 16.1% to 17.3%, allowing states and communities to better fund required special education services.

A subcommittee mark up of the draft LHHS bill released today has not yet been rescheduled.

U.S. Senate Panel Approves Funding Bill for Higher Education

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Last week the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education & Related Agencies approved a spending bill for higher education and research.

The bill makes several reductions to higher education and research. Among the reductions is $190 million in FY12 to the National Institutes of Health and the elimination of the National Center for Research Resources.

The bill does provide sufficient funding to maintain the maximum Pell Grant award of $5,550. To fund the Pell Grant the Senate proposes ending the interest subsidy on undergraduate student loans during the six-month grace period after a student graduates. The end of the interest subsidy is another impact to student borrower  benefits. In July Congress voted to end the in-school interest subsidy on federal loans to graduate students and eliminate the interest-rate reduction for on-time loan repayment for all borrowers as part of an effort to close the shortfall in the Pell program.

In addition to the Pell funding the Senate would provide same level support for Federal Work Study and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant as in 2011. Finally the Senate provides $20 million for a new program to speed the translation of basic reserach into treatments and cures.

The full Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to consider the bill this week. It is unclear as to the fate of the bill beyond this step. The U.S. House has indicated that they will not take up the Senate’s version of the bill and word on the street is that it is unlikely Congres will pass a stand-alone spending measure for education and research. Instead Congress is expected to pass one or more continuing resolutions financing programs at the 2011 levels and eventually consolidating the bills into a single omnibus spending bill later this year.

Gregoire Calls Special Session; Agencies Submit Where Reductions Would Come From

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Late last week Governor Gregoire announced that she would call the Washington Legislature back to Olympia on November 28 for a special session that could last up to thirty days by law.

The Legislature is charged with finding $2 billion in state funding reductions to fill the $1.4 billion gap expected between state revenues and projected state expenses, expected further erosion in revenues in the November 17 forecast, and calls for the state to have some money left in the general fund on July 1, 2013, when it starts the next fiscal biennium.

Legislative leaders and the top budget writers will go over plans with the governor’s staff in the next two months to prepare for the session. Word on the street is that the Governor will release her proposed budget reductions the week of October 24.

Some of the ideas that are likely to emerge in the Governor’s work may be found in state agency submissions to reduce public services and programs in response to the Governor’s request for proposals to reduce budgets by first 5% and then 10%.