NAICU’s 2023 Annual Meeting and Advocacy is right around the corner. It’s not too late to register and join over 400 of your colleagues in Washington to learn about and discuss the issues and opportunities ahead for private, nonprofit higher education. 

Speaker highlights include:

• Daniel R. Porterfield, Ph.D., President and CEO, The Aspen Institute, will provide his unique perspective on the role higher education leaders play in strengthening institutions, students and communities.
• Lee M. Miringoff, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion (NY) will discuss the midterm elections, the issues that most moved the electorate, and how the makeup of the House and Senate might affect legislative priorities.  Lee will also share new polling data on several key issues we’re following.
• Hon. Rashad Hussain, J.D., Ambassador At-Large, Office of International Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of State, will discuss the Biden Administration's efforts to monitor religious freedom abuses, persecution, and discrimination worldwide.
• James Kvaal, Under Secretary of Education, will provide insight into how the Department plans to tackle institutional accountability and other higher education priorities for the Biden Administration.

Our annual meeting also provides an excellent opportunity for you to connect with your Members of Congress.  Whether you are meeting a newly elected member or re-establishing existing relationships with your elected officials, Advocacy Day is critical to our efforts to advocate for and support independent higher education.

A key component of our advocacy work is the Congressional Independent Colleges Caucus (CICC), which is an informal group of Members dedicated to addressing the issues related to private, nonprofit colleges and the students they serve.  We will be hosting our 7^th annual CICC reception on Capitol Hill and are expecting a great turnout of Members of Congress and their staff.  We are fortunate once again that this year’s reception will coincide with President Biden’s Statue of the Union address.  This tends to create significant buzz during the reception and leads to greater attendance from congressional members.

I’d like to thank our friends at TIAA for sponsoring our first Capstone webinar earlier this week.  The webinar covered SECURE 2.0, the major reform of retirement legislation signed into law by President Biden late last year. The webinar and discussion detailed how SECURE 2.0 will affect the administration of retirement plans on your campus.  If you missed the webinar, you can view the recording and presentation slides on our website. 

Soundbite

• The Department of Education announced that it has awarded 38 Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grants totaling more than $30 million to higher education institutions from the following five competitive programs: Postsecondary Student Success Program; Basic Needs for Postsecondary Students Program; Open Textbooks Pilot Program; Centers of Excellence for Veteran Student Success; and Transitioning Gang-Involved Youth to Higher Education Program. NAICU will continue to monitor the Department’s progress in awarding these FIPSE grants to colleges and universities.

Today’s Washington Update reports on a speech delivered by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that gave clues to how the administration might tackle its efforts on determining the value of higher education, and a story highlighting a NAICU sign-on letter to the IRS urging faster action on backlogged tax returns filed by many NAICU-member institutions that claimed the employee-retention tax credit (ERC).