Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) last week introduced legislation that would include many important changes to the Higher Education Act (HEA), but it is not the comprehensive reauthorization bill that has been under consideration by Congress for years.
The relatively limited scope of the Student Aid Improvement Act (S. 2557) stems from the inconclusive negotiations between the majority and minority members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on a comprehensive bill. In the light of this, Alexander, who chairs the committee, is proposing more modest HEA legislation, partly by stitching together a series of already-introduced, bi-partisan bills.
However, Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), the ranking member on the HELP committee, have indicated that they will not support the bill, fairly dooming its Senate prospects.
The legislation has drawn some criticism because Alexander has opted not to separately advance the FUTURE Act, which provides now expired “mandatory” (i.e., guaranteed by law and not subject to the annual appropriations process) funding for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs).