by Dr. Terry W. Hartle and Dr. Cobretti D. Williams
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For this feature, we speak with Dr. Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs at the American Council on Education (ACE). During our interview, we spoke about President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, the prospects of college affordability and student loan forgiveness, and the outlook for higher education public policy under the Biden Administration.
Dr. Cobretti Williams: As you know, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was recently confirmed, and he presents a vastly different approach to the U.S. Department of Education compared to the previous administration. So, I am curious, what is the biggest area of contrast from his predecessor Betsy DeVos in terms of higher education policy?
Dr. Terry W. Hartle: Well, it’s an interesting question. The answer is both harder and simpler than you would like. Neither Secretary DeVos nor Secretary Cardona has a strong background in higher education. Both of them come to this having had some experience in higher education, but really never having worked in higher education or having a knowledge of the Federal Policy issues in that area. So they are both starting from a knowledge deficit in terms of one important area of what the Department of Education does. The fundamental difference between the two, Miguel Cardona believes in the bottom of the soul and the importance of Public Elementary-Secondary Schools. Betsy DeVos is much more interested in Private Elementary-Secondary Schools. So the differences are profound. The second difference would be really the difference in the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration. Secretary Cardona believes in the power of government to change human lives for the better. The Trump Administration was much more skeptical about the ability of the Federal Government to make significant changes that would improve lives in domestic policy. So that would be the two things I would point to. But I think they are both really starting from a pretty similar point in terms of how much they know about Federal higher education Policy.
Dr. Williams: Right. Well, to that point, right now Congress is attempting to pass a massive $1.9 trillion stimulus bill to usher Americans out of this pandemic. So how, if it all, can the pending stimulus bill help college students? Also, the biggest question of the hour, can they (students) reasonably expect some sort of student loan forgiveness at this point?
Dr. Hartle: The higher education agenda of the Biden Administration has five discrete elements. The legislation that the House passed, and that the Senate will begin with, would provide almost $49 billion to colleges and universities and their students. That is more than double the amount of money that was provided under the previous two stimulus bills. This will provide an enormous relief for colleges and universities that, like so many other parts of America, have been suffering terribly under the pandemic. Second, more money for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving institutions. Third, doubling the Pell Grant program. Fourth, forgiving some amount of federal student loans. And fifth, some sort of free public higher education.
In terms of ease of accomplishing, they are roughly in that order. Free college is something that is very important on the progressive side of the Democratic Party. President Biden was a little slow to get to it during the campaign, but he obviously adopted it. In terms of student loans, one question we point out is that the biggest problems for people repaying student loans are that people who are repaying have modest amounts of debt but aren’t able to pay them because they are unemployed, and with no realistic prospects of getting a job that would enable them to repay it. That would suggest maybe you ought to focus such an initiative on a totally different set of people than just saying it’s X amount of dollars for everyone. Second challenge with this, and getting Congress to pass legislation, is this is really expensive. The cost of forgiving $10,000 in loans for everyone who is currently repaying a student loan is $350 billion right away. That one-year cost exceeds the amount of money it would cost to double the Pell Grant Program for a decade. People look at that amount of money and say is that really the best most effective way to spend that much money to boost participation in post-secondary education and to help people who are repaying their loans? So, the fact that this is going to have to go through Congress, I think, diminishes the likelihood that it gets done because the design questions that are going to be asked are going to be pretty significant.
Dr. Williams: You mentioned a lot of different components of what could happen under the stimulus bill or what could be an outgrowth of it in terms of doubling the Pell Grant and having free college be an actual option to folks. If these programs were to go into effect, what would the long-term impact be on college affordability? If any impact at all?
Dr. Hartle: I think the most likely avenue for change in federal policy would be increased funding within existing programs. I think creating new programs of any type is going to be extraordinarily challenging. The most fundamental political reality in Washington is that Democrats control the federal government, but not by much. This means that if the Democrats want to pass legislation and they don’t have Republican support, they need to get everybody from Joe Manchin and Jon Tester to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to agree on what they are going to do. That is a pretty substantial undertaking. I believe the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan will be approved, but I think once we get past that, it will get harder and harder for Democrats to be unanimous in the directions that they want to take public policy.
Free college, I think, is about as likely as reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. That is just not going to get done simply because it raises too many complicated financial, technical, and political questions for people to agree on. If we were in a different era, it might be possible to do some of these things. But we live in an environment where the vast majority of Republicans are likely to oppose any new public policy departures that the Biden Administration wants to put in place.
Dr. Williams: Well that is a realistic picture if we are being honest about higher education and some of the issues it faces right now. So, if we are to look beyond Congress and pack our own lunches, what can ACE member institutions, and higher education as a whole, do to move policy forward for the betterment of postsecondary education in the short term? If we don’t suspect that Congress is going to be able to act, is there anything that colleges and universities and folks who work on the policy end of higher education can do to kind of propel this industry or this sector forward within education?
Dr. Hartle: I guess what I would say is that the public policy process will continue so expansions, modest changes in existing policy are very much possible going forward. However, trying to create something from whole cloth like student loan forgiveness or free college is going to face very rough sledding on Capitol Hill. So one thing I think colleges and universities can do is try to build on successful programs and policies that are already in place, and fortunately, there are quite a large number of them. Second thing I think we can do is to try to work closely with the Department of Education to make the department programs and policies work better than they have worked in the past.
Third thing I think we can look for is that the Biden Administration is going to move to overturn and modify rules and regulations put in place by the Trump Administration. This is a process that is pretty much entirely in the hands of the Department. It is not a fast process. It is intricate. It is complicated and it will take a long time. But you are talking about things like rewriting the Trump Administration’s Title IX regulations on sexual assault. You are talking about expanding borrower defenses so that students who have been defrauded by their institutions can claim a defense against having to be forced to repay their loan. You are talking about gainful employment requirements to give students some idea of the economic returns they might expect in programs that they might participate in a post-secondary institution. These aren’t easy. This is going to be a couple of years before we see this happen, but it will happen.
I don’t want to paint a picture of despair, but we are in a highly politicized nation, and the politics today really make it hard to put new departures in public policy in place. But that doesn’t mean that successful programs cannot be expanded. It doesn’t mean that the government agencies can’t work more effectively and efficiently. And it certainly doesn’t mean that regulations can’t be modified to address some of the problems that exist with them in their current state. So, I don’t want to paint a picture of despair. What I want to do is sort of calibrate expectations about what is doable, what is harder, and what will take more time to achieve.
