Senate HELP Committee Plans Bill Markups
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) scheduled a markup for July 29 to consider a series of bills, several of which would impact higher education institutions.
The agenda currently includes the College Transparency Act, which would establish a federal student unit record system. NAICU has long opposed this bill primarily because of student privacy concerns, as well as the regulatory burden its data collection requirements would impose on institutions. (For background, see NAICU’s Privacy issue brief.)
The markup agenda also includes the RISE Act, which would allow colleges and universities to use existing documentation of disabilities, such as an IEP or 504 plan to serve students with disabilities, and the State-Based Loan Awareness Act to modify the preferred lender list rules to be more permissive for state-based educational loan programs.
The markup represents a wish list of policies important to HELP Committee Chair Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who lost his primary race and will therefore soon pass the gavel as he exits Congress.
Given the backlog of legislative activities, the upcoming August recess, and the limited amount of floor time available in the waning months of the 119th Congress, it is unlikely that any of these bills can move through the full Senate at this time. Furthermore, the House continues to pursue its own higher education policy agenda that is more focused on dismantling the Department of Education rather than the issues currently on the agenda in the Senate.
For more information, please contact:
Jody Feder