The House of Representatives unveiled an omnibus education bill titled the College Opportunity and Affordability Act Nov. 9 to extend the provisions of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
The bill, which is more than 700 pages long, contains provisions affecting tuition rates, accreditation and information technology.
The House Committee on Education and Labor discussed and amended the bill for the past two weeks, and will send the bill to the House floor after the Thanksgiving Day Recess ends Dec. 3. The Senate passed a similar bill in July.
"We're still trying to digest everything that's in it and understand the implications of it," said Chris Simmons, associate vice president for federal relations. "There are just huge implications for this bill for higher education."
The bill has drawn fairly bipartisan support thus far and is motivated by Congress' concern for increasing tuition rates, Simmons said.
Some contentious language in the original legislation called for "Higher Education Price Increase Watch Lists," which would draw negative attention to universities that have the highest tuition increases.
In an effort to hold colleges accountable, the bill also calls for new reporting requirements on university spending and academic policies.
John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations, however, said these new requirements may actually raise tuition by increasing costs.
"There is always the issue of why does tuition rise the way it does.... [But] it's sort of a Catch-22 that gets built in here," Burness said. "You're going to have to report this, report that, you start adding it up and it's going to require people to do those things."
Another major component of the bill concerns accreditation. Accreditation is the process by which universities are certified every 10 years in order to ensure they are meeting basic higher education requirements.
The bill originally gave universities the authority to define student achievement, but an amendment was proposed Nov. 14 by Representative Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) that would have shifted control to accrediting agencies. Although the amendment ultimately failed to make it into the finalized bill, many college officials said they were upset at its consideration.
Judith Ruderman, Duke's accreditation director and vice provost for academic and administrative services, said in an interview with The Chronicle Nov. 16 that she was "shocked" at the amendment and angry that accrediting agencies had motivated it.
She added that she was unaware if the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Duke's primary accrediting agency, pushed for the amendment.
"We want to know where our accrediting body stands on this; they either listen to us and agree, or they don't," Ruderman said.
She added that SACS had previously told Duke that the Association would leave educational policy up to its member colleges.
The accreditation committee from SACS is set to review Duke in December 2009.
"I believe very strongly that institutions of higher education differ very much from one to the other and that we should not have one standardized way of assessing student learning outcomes," Ruderman said. "That would be disastrous if we had some federally mandated test, and Representative Andrews' amendment leaves the door open for just that kind of thing."
Regarding information technology, the bill calls on universities to stop on-campus illegal downloading by adopting "technology-based" deterrents. Some college officials, however, said this would increase operating costs and the use of unproven technology.
College officials have also expressed concern at the speed of the legislative process.
"The committee put this bill together sort of quietly, and popped it out there sort of quickly, so the higher education community hasn't had time to analyze it," Burness said.
Although the bill has drawn criticism from college officials, the response has not been entirely negative. Officials are pleased with provisions to expand the Pell Grant Program and simplify the financial aid process.
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