SPEAKER_00
ASEE's Race and Ethnicity and Higher Education Project has released the 2024 STAVIS report and updated the accompanying website. Supported by the Mellon Foundation, the report provides an updated overview of key topics in higher education, including undergraduate and graduate student enrollment, completion, student debt, and financing, by race and ethnicity. Explore the findings and download the report at www.
equityandhighered.org. Hello and welcome to .edu, the Higher Education Policy Podcast from the American Council on Education.
We'll be joined shortly by Julie Peller, Executive Director of Higher Learning Advocates, who is a deeply informed and deeply experienced person to talk about federal policy, as well as frankly just being a fun person to talk to about federal higher education policy. But before we get to Julie, I am joined as always by my co-host, Mushta Kunja and Sarah Spreitzer. How are you both doing today?
SPEAKER_03
Doing great. Hi, Sarah. Hi, John.
How are you?
SPEAKER_00
Sarah, you want to take this one?
SPEAKER_01
A little tired. Although not as tired as probably the Senate staff after this weekend of working on reconciliation all the way through Saturday. But yeah.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it's not just an arcane process. It's apparently a brutal process. So both the House and the Senate have been beating themselves up getting this done.
SPEAKER_03
John, is voter-rama one word or is it vote-a-dash-rama?
SPEAKER_00
So this is, I have seen so many different versions. One word worth is vote-er-rama, where like voter-rama, vote-o-rama is my preferred favorite. It seems more carnival-y and fun.
And Congress can obviously always use more of a carnival atmosphere than they already have. But yeah, I don't know that there's an Oxford English Dictionary resolution on this one.
SPEAKER_03
Maybe it'll be the word of the year.
SPEAKER_01
Figures crossed. Does anybody know if there were more amendments for this one than the previous reconciliation?
SPEAKER_00
I do not know. Maybe that's something I should know. I have to say, like many, many journalists and frankly, Congressional staff, I dropped in and out of that whole process.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think that there were like a good 700, 700 amendments and a lot of them that weren't even considered. So I think about that, you know, all the time and effort that goes into writing up an amendment and then it's not even considered. There were actually-
SPEAKER_00
Did you see some of those amendments? I'm not sure it took a whole lot of time and effort to write them up. There were a couple that were adopted though. One was new and one was a tweak to what the House had put over, which was the 90-10 rule change.
Instead of an immediate implementation of that rule, they bought proprietary institutions a little bit more time to come into compliance. And so the rule won't take effect until 2023 for people who don't know this rule, the 90-10 rule essentially says that for for-profit institutions only, not for non-profits, no more than 90% of your revenue can come from the federal government. The idea being you have to offer a program of sufficient value to encourage students to put their own money in on it.
And there was this, what we've always called the loophole, that money from particularly the Veterans Administration for Veterans Educational Benefits and from the Department of Defense for Military Education Benefits was not counted as federal funds for reasons that surpass understanding but have always been in place. And so the reconciliation bill actually included language that would say count all federal funds as federal funds on the 90% side of the ledger. That passed the House without issue in the Senate.
There was some pushback and ultimately it won't go into effect until 2023. And I think more importantly from my personal workload, they also dictated that there will have to be a negotiated rulemaking on this in October. So
SPEAKER_01
if you want us to nominate you, John, should we send that letter right now to get ahead of the PAC that we'll want to serve on that panel?
SPEAKER_00
You know, I have always admired Terry's deft management of his role as a negotiated rule maker. So I would strongly encourage you to put him forward for that. But the other one that I think was sort of-
SPEAKER_03
That's not an unnegotiated rulemaking sessions, John. And I think you would rather be a negotiator than sitting in the audience watching, which I have definitely done. So John, if you're planning on just watching anyway, I would just go ahead and try to negotiate it yourself.
SPEAKER_00
At least you get to talk. Yeah, that's a fair point. The other main role change was totally new to the Senate and it's interesting the Senate included language that essentially said for the next five years, any student loan forgiveness, whether that's through a unilateral forgiveness of student loans offered by the federal government or public service loan forgiveness, forgiveness or forgiveness, because you have met the terms of your income-based repayment plan in terms of forgiveness, all of that will be non-taxable.
And I think it makes sense for lots of reasons in terms of that. We've always thought that you shouldn't tax a benefit like that that's particularly done to reflect struggles loan conbar words might have repaying the full balance of their loans. But I like it because it's like the latest serve by Congress back to the Biden administration in this game of tennis over who's responsible for student loan forgiveness.
They've gone back and forth where Democrats and Congress, I should say, are adamant the president can simply use his pen to wipe out any and all student loan debt. Whereas the administration has said they're studying this with great fervor and intensity, but they don't think they have that authority. They need Congress to act.
And so still to be seen what that might mean for an actual forgiveness proposal or whether we'll see that in another reconciliation bill or down the road. But I do like that Congress has essentially said, well, haha, we've now taken away one of your justifications for not doing this back to you, Biden. So we'll see how that goes.
But
SPEAKER_01
always a fun process. But that has been something we've been asking for for a while. I mean, since I think public service loan forgiveness was established.
I mean, that's always been a concern that, you know, that borrowers would be taxed on that on that benefit. And so it's great that they got that included. And then, John, I guess both you think both those amendments will be accepted
SPEAKER_00
by the House? Yeah, I think as we do this now, as we record this podcast, the House is set to vote, they're going to take up what the Senate passes an amendment to their bill and pass it for it. You know, the Senate sort of has the guiding hand here because it's so much harder to get the bill through the Senate than it is through the House under the various rules. If the House was to start making changes back to what they would prefer, it just, you know, it will have to go back to the Senate again.
And the big thing is Sunday is March 14. That's the huge date looming over this whole process. That's when the unemployment insurance extensions run out.
Nobody on the Democratic side wants to see this bill delayed and have an interruption of benefits, especially because just, you know, systems-wise, state unemployment insurance systems are unwieldy machines. And if you turn it off for a day, it's not quite so easy to just flip it back on. So, yeah, I think it's going to pass the House, vote scheduled for Wednesday, which would be tomorrow as we record this, and a few days past as you listen to it.
And I think what we'll see is that it'll all have been signed into law at that point. I can't imagine trying to open this back up to see
SPEAKER_03
what sort of next thing Manchin might want to do. I mean, now that they've gotten the 50 votes, I imagine the House is just going to end up passing. I would think.
Hey, Sarah, this week we celebrate International Women's Day, and it looks like the Biden administration put forth a series of actions related to women that will affect our industry in higher ed. Do you want to tell us about this?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they did a lot just yesterday. The president established a new gender-focused White House policy council that's going to look at domestic and foreign policy. And then we'll also be looking at some of the issues surrounding COVID and the fact that we've seen so many women leave the workforce.
I know that's something we've been following within the academic workforce. And I know there's been lots of studies about how COVID has impacted female academics and female scientists and researchers much more than their male counterparts for a lot of different reasons. And then for us, one of the things that was really important is there was an executive order signed that calls on the new secretary of education to reexamine or review the Title IX rules, which were finalized during the Trump administration.
And a lot of folks are messaging that this is the start of unwinding those final rules. It's harder to unwind them because they were finalized. And so they're going to have to go through rulemaking to create a new rule to replace it.
And so it's going to take a while, but I think that this is the first step. And then I think important to President Biden, the House reintroduced or introduced the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which has been updated since its original introduction every couple of years. And President Biden was one of the original authors and sponsors of that bill in the Senate.
And so that's a big priority for the White House. And I think they're hoping
SPEAKER_00
to get bipartisan support on that. Well, we will obviously keep tracking that as it moves forward. I think the thing to keep in mind here is this is the first in what will be many steps over the longer term.
I know obviously this is one of those issues that campuses care greatly about. And when the Title IX rule went into effect, the comment period, I think there were over 125,000 comments, the most by far ever on the department rule. So we will keep you posted on that.
Speaking of keeping people posted, I was remiss and not mentioning earlier that as you are listening to this, we believe the reconciliation bill will have passed. One tool for you, the bill includes about $40 billion for higher education institutions and students. ASE through our Maven of Data and Departmental Knowledge, Dan Madzellan has put together, worked out what the allocations will be for every institution.
So you can look at that as a resource and find out what your institution is set to receive from the federal government as part of this relief. And that will be available on ASE's website and we'll include a link to it on the podcast site as well. Speaking of things we're doing at ASE, Moustak, I have a vague recollection.
There's some meeting coming up
SPEAKER_03
that you might want to mention. Yeah, actually, this last conversation is perfectly, is a perfect segue to that. So our ASE's big annual meeting done in virtual format this year is coming up in just a few days from when you hear this, March 22nd to March 24th.
And I promise that if you like this podcast and if you're listening, I hope that you do and you're not somehow forced to by your employer. I guarantee you're going to like our annual meeting. We have tons of sessions that are going to be about public policy related issues, you know, including a session on Title IX.
I'm sure that this question about the allocation of these recovery funds will come up. We've got sessions on international students. We have a plenary session with Michael Steele and Kirsten Powers, CNN commentator, MSNBC commentator, Michael Steele, of course, was the former head of the RNC.
They're going to be talking politics and talking about what the 2020 election and meant for higher education, what we should be looking forward to in 2022. It's going to be great. You're going to love it.
And it's all virtual. So you can do it in your pajamas. You don't even have to come and dress up, but at least you can probably wear pajamas on the bottom.
You might want to wear a shirt of some sort or a blast of some sort on top. But it's going to be great. We'll drop a link to the registration page and the schedule and all in the show notes.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. And I just want to emphasize, even if you don't like this podcast, you'll still probably find the AC Annual Meeting valuable and enjoyable. So it's not just for those of you who like this, because I realize that might be a large segment of our listener base.
We are going to take a brief break and be back with our guest, Julie Peller, right after that.
SPEAKER_03
And welcome back. We are joined today by our very special guest, Julie Peller. Julie Peller is the executive director of Higher Learning Advocates and one of the leading voices and experts in the country on higher education policy.
She, Julie, has done it all. Julie's working in the executive branch as a presidential management fellow at the Department of Ed. She's worked on the Hill, senior policy advisor, deputy staff director for the House Committee on Education and Labor.
She has significant foundation experience. She was Lumina Foundation's first director of federal policy. And Julie, you now run Higher Learning Advocates, just an extraordinary career.
And if I remember correctly, Julie, you're also one of those higher ed policy wonks that spends a lot of
SPEAKER_02
time baking. Is that right? That's right. That's how I destress from all the higher education policy
SPEAKER_03
thinking. So what is the last thing that you baked? And was it this week? So it wasn't this week,
SPEAKER_02
but I recently made a carrot cake, which felt like bringing in spring. Oh, that sounds great. I have,
SPEAKER_03
I'm on dessert duty this week. So I was looking for something to bake. Maybe I'll do carrot cake.
If I do, I will send you a picture. Julie, for our audience who doesn't know Higher Learning Advocates, would you tell us a little bit about about your organization? Sure. Higher Learning Advocates,
SPEAKER_02
we work to change federal policy to update our laws, our regulations, how policymakers think about who today's students are. We know they're older, they're more likely to be working, they're more likely to be parents themselves, first generation students, students of color, all populations that aren't very well represented in a set of laws and regulations that were really not changed dramatically from 1965. So we work to change that and help ensure their success.
SPEAKER_03
And I assume that you've been following all of the goings on on the hill over the course of the last couple of months. Have you and your organization been involved in trying to shape some of that
SPEAKER_02
policy? Absolutely. You know, I've been so pleasantly encouraged by the changing conversation. Once COVID hit Congress, and much like the rest of the country, we all jumped to response.
I think a big bright spot of that is taking out of the shadows the needs of students that go beyond kind of what I call tuition and textbooks, right? We've been working hard to ensure that students have access to emergency aid, to ensure that they have access to broadband support, that the varied needs of student parents in particular are represented in conversations. And, you know, we have been really pleasantly surprised how Congress has responded to that.
SPEAKER_01
And, Julie, obviously we have a new administration that's very vocal about wanting to help students in higher education and not just, you know, what we think of as traditional students, but kind of that population that you were just talking about that really do make up our post secondary enrollment. One of the things that we've been really focused on going into this year and looking forward towards the next reconciliation bill and the appropriation season is doubling Pell. And part of that is because the whole conversation going on about free college, which I think started during the campaign season, has higher learning advocates,
SPEAKER_02
have you guys engaged on those conversations? So we have a bit. You know, I think doubling Pell, I completely agree that, you know, that is a really big win for today's students. The amount of, again, tuition and everything that goes into cost of attendance for reporting schools just outpaced the increases that we've done at the federal level in the Pell Grant program.
You know, I do am mindful, frankly, on both double Pell and free college that it's done in a way that's sustainable, first of all, that doesn't create kind of a false cliff in a couple of years. We've been through that before where we've, we at the federal level, put a large increase into Pell Grants for a short period of time and, you know, had to kind of scramble to be sure that students weren't left high and dry a few years later. So I really hope that Congress does double Pell and that they do so in a sustainable way.
And that they do so in a way that works for all of today's students. And this goes for both double Pell and kind of gets into the free college conversation as well, that we recognize who that population is and don't create policies that just really go back to the kind of traditional picture of who a today's students, who a student is, and, you know, going from high school to college or needing to be enrolled full time or some of those complications that kind of be put on policies.
SPEAKER_01
I really hope that Congress doesn't go there. Okay. And do you see short-term Pell being part of that conversation, like looking at a Pell for kind of the next generation post COVID?
SPEAKER_02
I think so. You know, I think short-term Pell with appropriate quality guardrails, right? That is a, anytime you open up a program like the Pell Grant to a new set of programs, there's really critical questions to make sure that that value is there for students. But as the country is looking at how we get out of this economic situation that we're in, and that we really ensure that all pathways are available for students, I think it's a really important tool.
These are programs where students are going now. And as you all and many of your listeners know, right, like they're not always connected with the academic side of the program. And I think short-term Pell could be a way to not only help the near-term economic needs, but help create that academic pathway, as well as an economic pathway for those students.
It's interesting thinking of like a post COVID
SPEAKER_01
world, if it ever does happen. I mean, even now looking at kind of the enrollment trends that we're seeing and some of the surprising things that, you know, usually during times of, you know, an economic kind of crisis, you see enrollments go up, especially at community colleges, and that hasn't been true during COVID. Do you have any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_02
So my, you know, I think there's a lot of expertise out there that have kind of been looking at the why and I'm really concerned about and thinking through the how we can change it going forward, right? Of the, it seemed like we've hit the tipping point of between price and just the value proposition of going back to school didn't seem to be there in the last year at the community college level. But how can we change that conversation? You know, I think price has a lot to do with it, but I do also think showing that path for people to say this is a way to kind of get back on track and re-upping that conversation that those of us inside higher education know and breathe really well back to potential learners to say, hey, listen, you can back to short-term power, right? Like, you can come in, get a credential and get your next job. And it's also a stepping stone to the job after that and the credential after that, if you so wish, showing that pathway, I think it's really
SPEAKER_00
going to be important in the next year. Yeah, and I think that's so interesting too, because you touched on three things, price and pathways and then the sense that, you know, not only is there a pathway, but it's the right pathway for you. And a lot of ways that all ties into this debate we've been having about free college, right? And, you know, Bernie Sanders sort of famously launched it back in 2016, although the conversation had been going on before that.
It's certainly gotten a lot of attention. President Biden had proposed it as part of his campaign proposal. In fact, I think most of the Democratic presidential candidates had some version of free college.
And so I'm curious, you know, at HLA, have you taken a position on free college, which you want it to look like, or do you just going through the thought process around there? Because it's a big topic and there's a lot to chew on. And I'm just curious to get your overall thoughts before we dive in. So, you know,
SPEAKER_02
we are we are chewing on it for sure. You know, I think that the when done well is a really great the program in that free does two things. It certainly addresses the affordability, but it also is a message of promise to a potential learner, you know, that they are to say, we'll give you a credit for the amount exact about the money you need is different messaging and different kind of a promise to a learner or potential learners say, hey, this is this is free.
There's some big questions I have with it, you know, right at the top is making sure that it works for adult learners, making sure that it works for a young old, any learner who has had a stop in their own interruption in their post secondary career, you know, some of the early state programs really you couldn't stop between high school and college. And we just know that's not the reality, especially right now for so many learners. Or if they drop below full time, you know, what happens, you know, those kind of questions are unlikely to be addressed at the federal level, but I do think that the there need to be principles and needs to be the flexibility to ensure that that's there.
And that's that's really important to us at higher learning advocates that whatever comes through work for all of students and has a good value proposition.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I think that's it's been really interesting looking at what the states have done, because like you said, you know, it's this great test example of sort of unintended consequences. And there really is a divide in some ways between four year free college programs that we've seen, and then certainly two year free, you know, community college free community college, which a little bit more widespread, a little bit more data and maybe, in some ways, a smoother program at the state level. You know, I'm curious, we talked a little bit about doubling Pell.
Doubling Pell is functionally making community college free, right? Are these two sides of the same coin or these two conflicting interests? If you double Pell, do you need free college? What, you know, curious to get your thoughts on kind of what the policy priority should be in the space?
SPEAKER_02
Oh, you know, I think they dovetail really well. As you said, if you double Pell at the community college level, for most of the country, you're mostly free. Where just doubling Pell and not having a free college program, you don't lose you lose a little bit of that promise conversation.
And that's been shown to be really, really beneficial in the state programs. And so something to weigh. Do you need federal policy to be able to do that? You know, could a state that, at a double Pell, made their community college free, create a state free college program? Yeah, with no additional investment, for sure.
But I do think that doubling Pell is to say the conversation around free college really ends at the community college level, which I think that's in, if I could bring my crystal ball to the conversation here. Probably where it's going, you know, where I imagine the debate will be about how much community college or first two years to be free. Doubleing Pell will go throughout a student's undergraduate program.
And, you know, so I think those two things work really well together because it, you know, for students that in a four year program, for students at private institutions, they'll need assistance as well. And then it helps kind of is a different way to make that investment at the two year level. So it's very possible you could you can do both.
SPEAKER_00
And before I know my colleagues jump in with other things just on this off because I, with your experience, you have such a great perspective on this. But one of the challenges when we talk about a federal free college program is that most of the proposals have been the federal government meets the state halfway, right? The state commits to an increase in support, federal government matches that support even over matches that support, and that covers the tuition costs. And so even sitting aside the whole, which I love the, the, you know, tuition and books plus kind of framework that meeting tuition and books isn't necessarily all of the costs a student faces, certainly low income students.
The big problem we've always had in federal policy is actually getting the states to live up to that obligation and not even talking about, you know, programs where states have simply opted out, but states have found other ways around how they get that federal match. So do you think that is that the, the hardest to surmount obstacle to putting in a free, a federal free college program? Or is that something, you know, maybe
SPEAKER_02
there's a path forward on? So I do think in this economic environment, it's really hard to bring up states like institutions, like many Americans are struggling and trying to make ends meet. And we've seen time and time again that higher education often falls to the wayside of state investments in these kind of economic scenarios. So I do think we need to be thoughtful about that.
It has worked well, right? The LEAP program was a resounding success in this kind of state, federal partnership. You know, I think there's some critical elements that go into that. First and foremost is that the investment is large enough in the federal level to bring states to the table.
We've seen also where it doesn't work well, because that investment that tradeoff for a state was not, wasn't the right value judgment, right? We had a maintenance of effort on a relatively small challenge grant program, and states would have to put up more money to meet the maintenance of effort than they would have received from the program. And so it was a logical choice for them. So I think those things, those lessons need to be learned and heated when there's a future federal state partnership conversation.
But there's been lessons where it's worked really well. And I think LEAP is probably the best higher education example out there for that kind of
SPEAKER_00
partnership. And I'll just say thank you for bringing up LEAP. I love LEAP.
LEAP expired in 2012, I think, for school year 2012. And when it went away, I think it was only funded at about $64 million. So we ask every year to restore LEAP.
It has not actually been, the authorization is still there. It just needs money. So anyone listening, contact somebody about something.
SPEAKER_02
That's an example of one program that is hurt by its own success, right? The justification for no longer funding the program was that the states did all the things the program was meant to do. And so I agree, especially now. There's a lot that still can be done on those fronts.
SPEAKER_00
We'll talk later about promoting LEAP. That's a, it'll be you and me, but I won't be pushing it.
SPEAKER_03
Julie, changing subjects just a little bit, though, certainly on the same theme. What, what do you think Congress and the public sort of don't quite get about today's students? Hashtag today students. I know it's, you know, the real focus of higher learning advocates.
And how does, you know, how's higher learning advocates sort of think about what their priorities are on the Hill over the course of the next, next couple of years? I mean, we're unlikely, I think, from all accounts to be able to see a comprehensive higher education act. You know, what are the sort of piecemeal bills, if any, that you'd like to, you'd like to see Congress take up
SPEAKER_02
and work on? So, you know, to answer your first question first, we, we've seen so much progress in Congress and in the national media and with our great partners, like you all, of kind of changing the narrative of who today's students are. You know, I think that there's, there's this greater understanding, like I started at the top of their older, their, their working, I, I can spout it. Again, where we still have work to do is how today's students go through higher education and, and higher learning.
I intentionally say that broadly because for so many students, it's inside and outside the system of higher education, as we all think about it. You know, I think that there's still this idea of, oh, a quarter of students are parents themselves, but they're still choosing courses based on what, you know, the, their faculty ratings might be or what the reading list might be rather than does it fit with child care and work schedules? Does it allow for flexibility if a child gets sick? Those kind of, those kind of things. Does, is there recognition for prior work experience or prior prior learning at a different institution? Those are really complicated pathways that is what I hope that Congress starts thinking about and that we, we all start thinking about in our publicity recommendations, but we think about higher education not as a one and done for, for today's students, but they come in, they come out, they come back in, and we need to make those on-ramps and off-ramps a lot better for them, especially right now when so much of the, so many people in the country need to get back to work or are underemployed and, you know, reskilling is and different skilling or upskilling, you know, all the, the skilling words need to be part of our nation's recovery conversation.
And so I agree. We're not going to see higher education and act reauthorization in my guess until, you know, 18 months from now, but I am keenly paying attention to conversations about recovery and conversations about investment in our infrastructure and those kind of packages because training, education, and skilling have critical roles to play and they have in the past and they, they should especially, especially right now. Get a little bit more specific.
Some things that we are particularly paying attention to are ensuring that the progress that we've made in 2020, as far as addressing students' needs outside of tuition and textbooks, be a more permanent solution. So temporary solutions around emergency assistance for students, around broadband access, around connections with means-tested programs like SNAP were all passed and that was fantastic and part of kind of emergency measures. Those means were there pre-pandemic.
They were exacerbated by the pandemic, but they're going to be there post-pandemic as well. And so as Congress thinks about students in the coming year, there's critical conversations like doubling hell and affordability, but we can't stop there. We need to continue to recognize these beyond tuition needs for students as kind of a permanent and ongoing need that they have because that's what's stopping so many students from completing.
It's not what we do in the classroom. It's often their life outside the classroom. Yeah, one of the things,
SPEAKER_03
Julie, that gives me a little bit of hope coming out of the pandemic is I think that our institutions probably and our faculty probably now have a different view of what can be done in a virtual setting in terms of teaching classes and perhaps scheduling classes. I mean, one of the things that I know is so difficult for working adults is literally getting classes that they need to take on the schedules. They need to take them.
And I teach primarily students that have a career and they're taking classes at night. And I now sort of understand that I can do some of this stuff asynchronously, do some of it synchronously. So hopefully, we will take some of the learnings from these awful 12 months and be able to sort of move things forward a little bit.
Julie, do you have a sense that that might be happening on sort of a
SPEAKER_02
broader scale or do we not quite know yet? I don't think we quite know yet. Nor do I think we quite know. There was so much variation when the world suddenly went online last year.
Things were done really well and some things were done not so well. And I think that learning is going to take us a little bit of time to figure out those those learnings and we should. And the things that were done well should be replicated and continued.
And so cutting through that is exactly what's your example of. You're literally in students' homes now. And I think that that kind of fourth wall of a student's life outside of campus and complicated factors outside of campus has broken down a bit.
The stigma of a child showing up or employment situation happening or those that institution and the faculty member being a resource for students outside of that academic preparation, to me is such a great win that should absolutely continue regardless of what format classes are in going forward. Because institutions and faculty members can and should be really great resources for students in helping their success throughout their program and those conversations. I think so many students were
SPEAKER_03
afraid to have them before the pandemic. I totally noticed that too. You know that there are that so many of my students, so many more of my students are willing to ask for accommodations.
And I found that to be just just wonderful. You know, I do have I have cats coming across Zoom. I have children coming across.
You know, students are eating during class. And you know, for me, that's totally fine. They're trying to do eight things at once.
They don't have they don't have time to sort of take two hours of class, then eat and then go back and do everything else they need to do. So I'm, I don't know, I have a little bit of optimism here about about the way and what our institutions might might have, you know, reimagined what is possible and maybe not just like reimagined what's possible 20 years from now, but know that we can, you know, potentially be more accommodating meets students where they are more quickly.
SPEAKER_01
So, but absent kind of a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. And I guess this question is for Julie and John and we should talk all of you, you know, are there ways to encourage institutions to continue those or figure out kind of what the best practices are that we've learned coming out of COVID, you know, that we can scale up and talk about on a national level, like, are the are the ways to kind of have that conversation still there absent a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act?
SPEAKER_02
I think so. You know, certainly long lasting broad scale policy is supposed to happen and reauthorization at the federal level, I say supposed to because it so rarely does. You know, we average 10 to 15 years between reauthorizations and frankly by the time the ink is dry on them, the policy in the national conversation has gone past whatever big policy change Congress just tried to do.
And so, you know, I think that there's especially with the new administration and the broader way in which I am hopeful that they think about students and frankly the last administration thought more broadly about students as well, that there's conversations between at the national level and the federal level. And those are two different things that can happen outside of legislation through convenings and through guidance and through regulation. And, you know, there's so many tools that can happen.
And I do think that a lot of these changes are happening as we speak. And in some ways, you know, it's hard for me to say as a former authorizer and a former legislative staff, but in some ways non legislative changes in this moment might be better. Because, like I said, we tend to take 10 to 15 years to go back and take another look at legislation, whereas regulation guidance, those kind of things have a shorter cadence.
And right now we've got to try a number of things. We have to keep students at the center, and we have to be willing to be flexible as the entire environment is kind of changing under our feet.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I would just say, and this is unusual for people know me, I shared Julie's optimism. And maybe, you know, I think everything she said is exactly right. And I think we've been encouraged by, you know, what faculty like Mushdock and what institutions have done on their own in response.
But there are positive things on the federal level, right? Like, it's not a reauthorization or bust. We've seen FAFSA simplified, we've seen, you know, the IRS data link, which will be hugely helpful for low income students just to simplify the process. All these things sort of tucked into different places where we're working on problems.
And then I think really also encouraging in particular about today's students, we've seen in, you know, the different aid bills, there's been provisions to increase broadband access for low income students, there's provisions to increase the amount of childcare support, which even if that's a broadly sort of economic recovery, it means a lot to those students, which talk about who are talking about who have pulled in eight directions simultaneously. So there's lots of ways that even if the federal government can't keep up with what's going on nationally, they're at least seemingly chipping in in different ways. And some of this is obviously tied to the pandemic.
I'm really hopeful that it's open the conversation, the pandemic has opened eyes to the needs for these things going forward, that this won't end with a national emergency ends, that that understanding and the importance of these wrap around services, student support services, childcare, things like that on a campus will keep going and there'll be more attention to that. So, you know, obviously, Julie, you and I are both optimistic. I saw some nodding heads on the Zoom from Ushtak and Sarah.
We are all optimistic, which is an uncomfortable place for me to be in. But given all these things we just identified, institutional practice, individual faculty practice in places where the federal government has, you know, gotten out of their own way and been helpful, you know, what do you think this all means? But, you know, grab your crystal ball again, you pulled it out earlier. What does this mean for students, particularly the students that you guys are so focused on? So I think that this
SPEAKER_02
means a big change for students. As you were talking about the recognition of at all levels of whose students are and, you know, I think being seen and understanding that the student needs beyond higher education is a really hopeful message. And I'm also not usually this optimistic, but I do feel optimistic about the message, the policies we can change for today's students, as well as the message we can send to them, that the struggles and the barriers in the system of higher education are struggles and barriers in the system of higher education.
I think for too long, we've kind of left it to students to say, you know, it's on you. If you fail, it's because you failed, not because the system wasn't set up for you or we didn't have a workaround or we didn't kind of create the system for students. And now we have an opportunity to look around and say, let's create that system for students and let's have students help inform those pathways and help inform those policies.
And I'm really hopeful that we can do that.
SPEAKER_00
Well, let's all hope that our common optimism is actually an indicator of things to come. And I know you certainly will be working towards that and we will be too. Julie, you can probably tell we could talk to you for the next two hours.
It would be very easy and a lot of fun for us, but you have to get out there and save leap. So just on behalf of my co-host, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. Really enjoyed the conversation.
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it as well. To listen to earlier episodes and subscribe to .
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