On May 1, the Congress finalized and sent to the president HR 5715, the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act of 2008. President Bush is expected to sign the measure. The bill, which moved remarkably quickly through the legislative process, seeks to allay jitters about the availability of student loans during the upcoming peak lending season. HR 5715 is designed to reduce reliance on costlier private loans by increasing federal loan limits; assist parent borrowers in the federal PLUS program with new deferments; and provide tools to the Education Secretary to assure the availability of needed capital. Recent amendments would also direct funds realized by increased borrowing in the PLUS program to the ACG and SMART grant programs, which provide additional money to qualified Pell Grant eligible students with high achievement in math, science and languages.

In a related matter, the Senate recently passed yet another extension (S 2929) of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which would run through May 31. The HEA was last reauthorized in 1998 for five years, and has been repeatedly extended for short periods since then. Due to unrelated political matters, the House failed to pass S 2929 as April drew to a close, which has allowed the Act to expire, at least until next week, when it seems likely that the House will approve the measure. Meanwhile, House and Senate leaders have completed work on separate long-term HEA reauthorization bills and are working on a compromise version which may be finalized as soon as this month.

Responding to the credit crunch affecting financial markets, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce today approved a bi-partisan bill aimed at ensuring access to federal student loans. According to the committee’s chairman, Rep. George Miller (D- Martinez), HR 5715 is designed to: reduce reliance on costlier private loans by increasing federal loan limits; assist parent borrowers in the federal PLUS program by providing for deferment of payments until six months after the student’s graduation, and by allowing some parents who are delinquent on mortgage repayments to receive PLUS loans; and provide tools to the Secretary of Education to assure the availability of needed capital. The committee’s Ranking Republican member, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), co-authored HR 5715 and issued a statement in support. The measure is similar to a bill introduced last week by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), chair of the Senate’s education committee. Kennedy’s bill, S 2815, also proposes to increase the maximum Pell Grant available to the neediest students by $750.

Former state senator Jackie Speier, a Democrat, easily won a special election yesterday to finish out the Congressional term of the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo).  Speier will be sworn in on Thursday.  She is also considered the favorite to win a full term this November in the overwhelmingly Democratic Bay Area district, which includes San Francisco State University.  Lantos, who was in his 14th term, passed away in February after announcing in January that he had cancer of the esophagus and would not seek re-election.  The only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the US Congress, at the time of his death he chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.  He was replaced by another Californian, Rep. Howard Berman (D-North Hollywood).

On February 7, the House passed HR 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, which would reauthorize the Higher Education Act for five years. As noted by Inside Higher Ed, while HR 4137 covers a vast range of programs and issues related to higher education, an important new focus of the proposal centers on attempts to monitor and control college costs. The measure passed with strong bi-partisan support, led by House Education and Labor Committee Chair George Miller (D-Martinez) and Ranking Member Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita). California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed expressed the system’s support for the legislation, noting its emphasis on increasing the maximum Pell Grant and making it available for year-round study; expanding ACG and SMART grant eligibility to include part time students and legal residents; maintaining the GEAR UP and TRIO outreach programs; strengthening graduate programs at Hispanic Serving Institutions; and creating grant programs to enhance university outreach to veterans and to improve campus sustainability efforts.

The Senate passed S 1642, its version of an HEA reauthorization bill, last July. That bill also received strong bi-partisan support, and while different from the House bill in many details, generally covered comparable turf in a similar manner. House and Senate staff and leaders are currently working on a compromise version, which could come to the floor of each chamber as early as this April. A comparison of the two bills and some of the recommendations made by a group of higher education associations can be found on the American Council on Education web site.

The Higher Education Act was last reauthorized in 1998 for five years, and has been repeatedly extended for short periods ever since.  The latest such extension was passed earlier this month and extends the Act through April 30.

Molly Corbett Broad will succeed David Ward as president of the American Council on Education, the association announced yesterday. Most recently the head of North Carolina’s state university system, Broad will become ACE’s first woman president when she assumes the reins this May. She served as Executive Vice Chancellor and COO for the California State University system from 1993 to 1997. As noted by Inside Higher Ed, ACE “acts as the chief voice for higher education as a whole in federal policy debates.”