HEA Reauthorization complete in Senate

The Senate today passed the Higher Education Amendments -- the first reauthorization of the 1965 Higher Education Act since 1998 -- on a unanimous vote of 95-0. Programs under the HEA had been continued under temporary authorizations since FY2004. Together with last week's companion legislation, the Senate has finished its action on the HEA for this year, excepting, of course, adoption of a conference bill.

Last Thursday, the Senate passed the Higher Education Access Act, a higher education budget reconciliation bill. The budget reconciliation process, established in the 1970s, is a process whereby the House and Senate budget committees set a new target for spending for a mandatory federal program and request that the appropriate legislative action be taken to achieve that target. Typically the process is used to reduce the deficit; in the case of the Higher Education Act reconciliation, the Budget Committee requested that $750M in annual savings be found in the Higher Education Act. Both the House and Senate used that directive to rework the funding mechanism for the law.

Although the House has passed a version of the Higher Education reconciliation bill, it has yet to draft language for the law's reauthorization. Instead, Rep. George Miller, chair of the Education and Labor Committee, has introduced legislation to temporarily extend the authorization of the act as has been done since 2004. The text of the legislation is not yet available, but it is expected that Miller's temporary extension anticipates passage of the reauthorization before the end of the first session of this Congress in November. The bill, introduced Monday, July 23rd, is numbered H.R. 3122.