Higher Education Act Recommendations
119th Congress

Empower Students and Families to Make Informed Higher Education and Financing Decisions

  • Encourage families to save for college by increasing the income protection allowance in the Student Aid Index (SAI) and excluding qualified education savings accounts from assets used to calculate the SAI.
  • Help students and families make informed decisions about education and career pathways by improving the quality of program-level data available through the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. Data should include program-level completion rates, earnings, costs, average student loan debt, and loan repayment outcomes.

  • Enable students and families to more easily compare costs and financial aid across institutions by improving transparency in financial aid offers by:
    　　○ Establishing standardized requirements for institutions to provide clear and consistent information on the cost of attendance, grants and scholarships, federal student loans, work-study, net price, and the remaining unmet need the student or family may choose to finance from the private sector or through the federal Parent PLUS loan.
    　　○ Prohibiting institutions from automatically packaging federal Parent PLUS loans and standardizing the terminology used to describe federal and private student aid.

  • Strengthen financial literacy by requiring tailored annual counseling for all students receiving federal student aid. Counseling should provide students with information about their cumulative student loan debt, estimated future monthly loan payments, and projected earnings associated with their intended program of study or career pathway.
  • Make it easier for institutions of higher education to inform students and families about low-cost education loan products offered through qualifying state-based education loan programs by supporting the State-Based Education Loan Awareness Act. This bill would allow information sharing about these programs without triggering certain preferred lender arrangement requirements, provided the loan program meets specified consumer protection criteria.
  • Ensure students and families have access to free services to help plan, save, and pay for higher education by making it easier for institutions to partner with state-based and nonprofit higher education finance organizations that provide such programs at no cost.
  • Make it easier for students and families to compare loan options by applying Truth in Lending Act disclosure requirements to federal student loans, including disclosure of the annual percentage rate (APR).
  • Require financial aid administrators to certify that private education loans do not exceed the student’s cost of attendance less other estimated financial assistance.

Increase College Access and Affordability and Prevent High-Cost Financing and Over Borrowing

  • Improve college affordability and provide greater financial certainty for low-income students and families by strengthening the federal Pell Grant Program. Specifically,
    　　○ Index the maximum Pell Grant award to inflation and provide sufficient mandatory funding to prevent future funding shortfalls.
    　　○ Authorize a pilot program to allow students to receive a larger Pell Grant award for a reduced number of Pell-eligible semesters, while maintaining the overall lifetime limit on Pell Grant assistance.
  • Expand access to tax-exempt financing for qualified student loan bonds by supporting passage of the Student Loan Bond Expansion Act, which would increase the availability of low-cost private education loans offered by nonprofit and state-based organizations.
  • Encourage private education loan borrowers to shop for loans and compare the actual interest rates and APRs for which they qualify—not simply advertised rates—as well as fees, repayment terms, borrower protections, and other benefits.

Provide for a Modernized Federal Student Aid Environment That Is Transparent, Flexible, and Stable

    • Modernize the federal student aid delivery systems to improve the timeliness and accuracy of information provided to students and borrowers, reduce fraud, and ensure that federal aid providers, servicers and institutions have the technology and infrastructure necessary to accurately and quickly process aid and support students and families.
    • Ensure that federal student loan servicers have the resources and funding necessary to properly service and support borrowers, reduce student loan delinquency and default, and maintain compliance with changing laws and regulations.
    • Conduct a one-time redistribution of federal student loan borrower accounts among servicers to better balance servicing portfolios to improve service to borrowers across all servicers. Establish an equitable, performance-based approach to assigning future accounts.
    • Ensure that Workforce Pell Grant program approvals are timely and that systems necessary to exchange data among states, the U.S. Department of Education, and institutions are scalable, reliable, and secure.