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Senate Committee Approves Two Bills to Renew Higher Education Law
Efforts to reauthorize the nation's higher education law continued forward last week, as the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee approved legislation to reauthorize higher education and financial aid programs on Wednesday, June 20th.

The Senate Committee passed two separate bills. One, approved unanimously, renews and changes numerous programs and policies under the Higher Education Act. The other, approved by a vote of 17-13 (with 3 Republicans voting against) is a “budget reconciliation” measure that parallels the legislation approved by the House Education and Labor Committee last week to improve student financial aid. Budget reconciliation measures are bills that reduce the federal deficit and are subject to special “easy to pass” rules and limits on debate on the Senate floor.

Higher Education Access Act of 2007
Like the House bill, the Senate reconciliation bill cuts subsidies to student loan lending agencies and banks in order to substantially increase student aid programs and pay down the federal deficit.

It makes several changes that would advance educational opportunities for women in economic transition including:

• Providing $17.3 billion over five years for the “Promise Grant” program which would bolster Pell Grants for students with the greatest financial need—effectively increasing the maximum Pell Grant to $5,100 next year and to $5,400 by 2011. (The House bill would increase the maximum Pell to $5,200 by 2013.)

• Raising the amount working students can earn without reducing their financial aid awards.

• Creating a Higher Education Price Watch List to call out colleges and universities that unreasonably increase their tuition.

While the House and Senate bills are parallel, key differences exist. For example, the Senate's education bill would not increase current annual and lifetime caps on how much students can borrow from federal loans, nor would it decrease the interest rate that borrowers pay on federally subsidized loans.

And, the Senate bill includes an important provision that the House bill does not: it eliminates a question asking whether applicants have been convicted of drug possession from federal student aid applications.

Higher Education Amendments Act

The second bill passed by the Senate HELP Committee last Wednesday, which will not benefit from special “easy-to-pass” reconciliation rules, contains an enormous number of changes to higher education programs and policies.

Women Work! will share more information on this bill—and its implications for unemployed and underemployed women—once the full text of the legislation is made public.

Stay tuned to the Women Work! website for more information as the House and Senate move forward with their Higher Education Act reauthorizations. We've added a new “Higher Education Act” page to our Policy Tracker feature. Click here to check it out!

Career and Technical Education, Job Training Funding Frozen in Senate Bill
Funding for several programs that advance women's economic opportunities would be frozen under the Senate's FY2008 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill passed out of subcommittee and full committee on June 19th and 21st, respectively.

Despite growing needs compounded by stagnant spending during the last several years, the Senate Committee's bill would freeze funding for:

• career and technical education
• Pell Grants
• job training
• child care assistance

On a more positive note, the Department of Labor Women's Bureau—the only federal agency devoted to the concerns of working women—would see its budget increased to $10.3 million (from $9.7 million in FY2007) under the Committee's bill.

* The Committee rejected the President's proposal to cancel $335 billion in job training funds currently available for training purposes.

What's Next: Senators are hoping that the bill will head to the Senate floor for a full vote soon. The House Labor-HHS-Education funding bill has only been approved by the Subcommittee; it will require full Committee approval before moving to the House floor.

Building on the Success of 35 Years of Title IX
Last Tuesday, the Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Title IX on June 23, 2007.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is the primary federal law prohibiting gender discrimination in education. Introduced by Congresswoman Patsy Mink (D-HI), Title IX states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” With the passage of Title IX, institutional gender discrimination was prohibited, allowing girls and women in America to flourish in the field of education, which inarguably opened the doors to better employment opportunities. In 1970, only 8.1% of American women were college graduates and in 2005 the rate rose significantly to 26.5%.

Yet, despite the relative success of Title IX, girls and women still face gender discrimination in education. The gender gap in women's athletics, disproportionate participation rates in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields, sexual harassment across educational settings and severe sex segregation in career and technical education programs show continued gender inequality in education 35 years later.

During the hearing, several witnesses argued for stronger enforcement of Title XI. Marcia D. Greenberger, Co-President of the National Women's Law Center , urged Congress to provide adequate funding for the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, the federal body responsible for enforcing Title IX regulations. Without sufficient funding, compliance reviews are conducted sporadically, limiting the ability to detect gender discrimination at educational institutions.

Dr. Rita Simon of American University criticized the inefficient system currently used by OCR to collect data on gender equity in educational institutions and stressed the importance of obtaining accurate data to make effective policies. She urged Congress to design a uniform data collection and reporting system on student participation in and completion of educational programs.

Also last week, both the House and Senate passed resolutions celebrating the accomplishments of Title IX and recognizing the need to continue pursuing the goal of educational opportunities for women and girls.