College Access Bill Gets Thumbs Down From Lobbyists
By Charles Pekow

Would the College Access and Opportunity Act actually increase college access and opportunity? Higher education lobbyists are largely expressing disappointment with the bill that emerged earlier this summer from the House Education and the Workforce Committee and are hoping to change it on the House floor, in the Senate or in conference.

House bill managers say they plan to bring the bill to the floor sometime in September. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions also plans to mark up its own version in September.
“The whole premise of the bill is to create greater access to higher education. I don’t see that happening in this particular bill,” says Gabriella Gomez, higher education lobbyist for the American Federation of Teachers, which represents about 150,000 higher education professionals, mainly at two-year schools.

“Pell Grants are not increased nearly as much as we would like,” Gomez says. The increase to $6,000 “chips away at it but it does not acknowledge there are greater needs for greater numbers of people going into higher education.” But she added that the bill’s “year-round Pell Grants are a good start. I am just not as encouraged because the whole package is not there.” She also praised the bill’s increased loan forgiveness for teachers and other professionals.

But AFT also opposes the bill’s Academic Bill of Rights, designed to prevent discrimination against students for expressing political opinions. A national voluntary code opens the door for government infringement on academic freedom, Gomez warns.

In addition, AFT is concerned that the bill would allow more aid to students attending for-profit schools without adequate oversight. “They have salespeople sign up homeless people who never attend college” to get tuition, says AFT spokesman Jamie Horwitz.

But not everybody thinks that for-profits should be treated differently from public and nonprofit institutions. The money doesn’t go directly to them, “it just gives the students who are choosing to go to our colleges the option to receive tuition assistance,” notes Ellen Hollander, president of the Association of Proprietary Colleges, which represents for-profit higher education schools in New York state. “We were very happy that the House version did include a change that would include us. We think it is something that is long overdue,” Hollander says.
As to tuition abuses, New York state supervises for-profits, which the schools welcome, she says. “We would welcome more enforcement, more supervision.” The problem with the bill is that it doesn’t go far enough by letting for-profits in on all programs, Hollander adds.