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Higher Ed Dive
Cardona emphasizes community colleges, career-tech pathways at Senate hearing
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Feb. 3, 2021
Dive Brief:
The importance of community colleges and career and technical education
dominated discussion of higher education topics at the confirmation
hearing of Miguel Cardona, President Joe Biden's pick for education
secretary, on Wednesday.
The proceedings were the first step in approving Cardona, the chief of
Connecticut's K-12 public schools, to lead the Education Department
amid a health crisis that has thrown colleges' finances, and the safety
of their students, into question.
Lawmakers appeared receptive to Cardona, with the top Democrat and
Republican on the Senate's health and education committee indicating
they would swiftly move forward with his confirmation.
Dive Insight:
Cardona would take the helm of the Education Department at a time when
college enrollment has suffered, particularly among two-year schools,
and institutions are balancing their desire to reopen campuses with the
knowledge that coronavirus cases remain elevated nationwide.
His predecessor, Betsy DeVos, declined to put forth direct guidance to
colleges on reopening campuses, leaving decisions to institutions that
relied on directives from local and state health officials and
inconsistent recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Legislators touched on the pandemic's adverse impact on postsecondary
education during the hearing before the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions. After securing pledges from Cardona that
he would work to "reform" the department's Federal Student Aid office,
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pointed to the economic stress on
student loan borrowers and reiterated a demand she made with Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that the Biden administration erase up to
$50,000 in federal student loan debt for individual borrowers.
A large portion of the meeting was devoted to K-12 schools. When higher
education did arise, it was mostly in reference to lawmakers' desires
to ease the pathways between secondary schools and community colleges
and career and technical education.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., plugged a bipartisan bill that has been endorsed
by workforce development groups and would create grants backing
partnerships between community or technical colleges and entities such
as state workforce boards and industry associations. Kaine referenced
limits on the federal Pell Grant, which he and other lawmakers have
attempted to loosen. Pell Grants can be applied to programs as short as
15 weeks, but consumer protection advocates are wary of expanding them
to shorter ones with poor earning potential.
Cardona praised two-year schools multiple times, even before lawmakers
brought them up, calling them the country's "best-kept secret." He said
they would be vital to helping rebuild the U.S. economy as the pandemic
relents.
Other lawmakers drew attention to the administration's moves to bolster
sex discrimination protections. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said one of
Cardona's first priorities should be to review the department's
policies and practices to ensure gender identity and sexual orientation
are protected classes in its rules related to sex discrimination.
Biden, in a recent executive order, directed all federal agencies to do
this.
And Sen. Patty Murray, the new chair of the HELP committee, said
Cardona should move quickly to rework the department's regulation on
Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination on campuses. The
current rule, formed under DeVos, earned the ire of activists against
sexual violence who said it reduced the number of cases colleges would
need to investigate.
Murray said at the end of the hearing that she would schedule a
committee vote to move Cardona's nomination to the Senate floor "as
quickly as possible," though she did not mention an exact date. Sen.
Richard Burr, R-N.C., the committee's new ranking member, called
Cardona "eminently qualified."
The hearing was a sharp contrast from DeVos' contentious confirmation
process four years ago, for which former Vice President Mike Pence
needed to serve as the tie-breaking vote.
The Biden administration is filling out the Education Department.
Michelle Asha Cooper, who was most recently the president of the
Institute for Higher Education Policy, was named acting assistant
secretary for postsecondary education.
Ramin Taheri, a former department senior attorney, will be chief of
staff for the Office for Civil Rights. Melanie Muenzer, who most
recently was an administrator at the University of Oregon, will be
chief of staff to the Office of the Under Secretary.
Read this and other stories at Higher Ed Dive
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