Hawley taking on higher education with new legislation

Missouri U.S. Senator Josh Hawley is introducing two pieces of legislation this week that will expand federal aid for people pursuing vocational education and will put higher education institutions on the hook for students unable to repay student loans. Read excerpts from his press release below:

The first piece of legislation will make more job-training and certification programs, like employer-based apprenticeships and digital boot camps, eligible to receive Pell Grants through an alternative accreditation process.

This bill instructs the Department of Education to develop a new certification pathway to allow job training, apprenticeship, and certification programs to be eligible to receive Pell Grant dollars. The federal Pell Grant program is this country’s largest non-debt investment in higher education, providing grants to more than 7 million students from low-income families through annual spending of around $30 billion. Allowing students to use their Pell Grant at a greater range of career training programs will reduce reliance on debt and maximize opportunities for students to pursue their dreams.

The second piece of legislation will require institutions of higher education to have skin in the game when it comes to cost and student outcomes by requiring them to repay a portion of the loan balance of students who are unable to repay their debt.

This bill requires colleges and universities to pay off 50 percent of the balance of student loans accrued while attending their institution for students who default, and forbids them from increasing the cost of attendance to offset their liability.

Senator Hawley said, “For decades, Americans have been told that you have to go to college to get a good job. But, in more and more places, college costs a fortune. And college degrees are no longer a guarantee of a good job.

“American students and workers need more pathways into the middle class, more opportunities to get good work and build bright futures. And they shouldn’t have to further enrich colleges by taking on a mountain of debt or mortgage their lives in order to get a good-paying job.

“Yet, we have a system that preferences students who want to attend a four-year college over Americans who want to learn a skill. This system protects higher education institutions that have been padding their endowments with taxpayer money while they raise tuition.

“It’s time to break up the higher education monopoly. It’s time to level the playing field and provide more options for career training. We also must hold higher education institutions accountable that take advantage of students who rack up mountains of debt, are unable to find a good job and default on their loans.”