College Access and Opportunity Bill Passes House Committee
By Charles Pekow

College would become more affordable for specific groups under amendments to the Higher Education Act reauthorization bill being readied for House consideration this fall. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved the College Access and Opportunity Act with a number of additions to the version approved in subcommittee earlier this month.

The committee passed the bill on a party-line vote of 27-20, with no Democrats supporting it. It approved a number of Republican-sponsored amendments but blocked Democrats’ initiatives to increase student aid, including a provision to increase Pell Grants by $500 a year.

Committee Chairman John Boehner, R-Ohio, issued a statement saying, “We’re providing meaningful reforms that will expand college access, prioritize the needs of students and protect American taxpayers.”
But ranking minority member George Miller, D-Calif., offers a very different interpretation.

“To make up for Republican mismanagement of the federal budget, the committee bill forces students to give up $11 billion worth of financial aid to help reduce the massive federal budget deficit,” he says. “This bill treats students as if they are responsible for Republican fiscal mismanagement.”

Though committee members failed to add a proposed amendment that would forbid colleges from refusing outright to accept community college credits, the bill would require colleges to stick to and publicize a credit-transfer policy.

The bill would also authorize year-round Pell Grants, as the subcommittee version allowed. However, a clause added in the full committee would permit the year-round grants for students at two-year colleges only if the school has an above-average graduation rate during at least one of the last three years for which the Education Department’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems survey program contains figures.