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Higher Ed Dive
What a Democratic-controlled Congress could mean for higher ed
Senate wins in Georgia give the party more power to pass measures such
as coronavirus relief spending, but their influence is limited.
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Jan. 6, 2021
Democrats secured control in Congress after winning dual Senate runoff
races in Georgia this week. Although the margin of their advantage is
slim, it has some progressives hopeful that the majorities, along with
the Biden administration, could deliver on postsecondary policies they
favor.
However, Democrats’ tenuous reign in Congress means they will need to
work across the aisle to pursue significant policy change. And it may
doom higher education proposals unpalatable to some moderates and
conservatives, such as free college.
Still, they will head education committees in both chambers, giving
them more sway, policy experts say. And it only takes a simple majority
in the Senate to pass certain spending-related measures; a coronavirus
relief bill, which the sector has desperately sought, would qualify.
"Democrats set the tone, they will define the agenda," said Terry
Hartle, senior vice president of government relations for the American
Council on Education. "But they won’t be able to guarantee everything
happens."
What’s first?
More coronavirus aid will surely be the first concern for
President-elect Joe Biden and Democrats as the new Congress gets
underway.
Stalled funding negotiations drew deep ire from higher ed leaders. The
Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act was
approved in March, which gave colleges about $14 billion. The U.S. saw
no additional relief funding until late 2020, when after a high-profile
political battle Congress agreed on a $900 billion package. The
legislation was momentarily imperiled when President Donald Trump
refused to sign it, though he ultimately did so.
It gave institutions $23 billion, a far cry from the $120 billion ACE
deemed the minimum. Absent from it, however, was assistance for local
and state governments, a Democratic priority that was taken off the
table as lawmakers haggled.
This omission was viewed as particularly damaging for public colleges,
which lean heavily on state support and are bracing for extreme budget
cuts in light of the economic fallout from the pandemic, said Wesley
Whistle, senior adviser for education policy and strategy at
left-aligned think tank New America. For instance, Hawaii’s governor
recently announced he aimed to scale back the University of Hawaii’s
two-year budget by $78 million, amounting to a 15% reduction across all
its campuses.
The Senate typically needs 60 members to pass a bill. However, it can
bypass this requirement for spending measures — which could include a
relief bill with state aid attached — in a process known as
reconciliation. This type of legislation would be immune to
filibustering, which could hamper it, and only needs 51 Senators to
approve it.
Many Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to endorse aid to local
and state governments, claiming it is a waste of taxpayer dollars, said
Tom Harnisch, vice president for government relations at the State
Higher Education Executive Officers Association. He is optimistic that
Democratic control of Congress would make it easier to pass more
relief, and said SHEEO would continue to advocate for it.
New agenda-setters
Democratic control of the Senate also gives Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wa.,
the top spot on its health and education committee and, therefore,
agenda-setting power. Murray is notably a longtime advocate of college
affordability, said Kim Cook, executive director of the National
College Attainment Network, a group that works to close equity gaps.
Murray was also key in helping to pare back the Free Application for
Federal Student Aid through a much-lauded provision of the recent
federal government spending bill, which also expanded access to the
federal Pell Grant.
An aide for Murray did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Senate will need to confirm Biden’s nominees to the U.S. Department
of Education, a process that will likely prove easier under Democratic
control than had when the GOP led the chamber. The president-elect
already named his choice for Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona,
Connecticut’s public schools chief. Along with Cardona, the Senate will
also confirm undersecretary appointees, who would have considerable
influence shaping the department’s higher ed policy.
"If the administration wanted to, it could pursue potentially
controversial or provocative personalities," said Rick Hess, director
of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise
Institute.
Appointing progressives could help appease the party’s more
left-leaning wing, as Biden and the new Senate Majority Leader, Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y., will also be pressured to do, he said.
With the majorities cemented, Democratic lawmakers such as Sens. Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will demand their party seek progressive
policies, said ACE’s Hartle. But he predicted they will focus on
jumpstarting the economy before the 2022 midterm elections.
The new political environment may cause ACE to "change its calculus,"
on what it will ask of lawmakers, Hartle said. But it will continue to
press for more coronavirus relief money and support for historically
Black colleges. It will also continue to urge Congress and the
administration to double the Pell Grant, which Cook said is also NCAN’s
next big campaign. Biden has also pledged to double Pell.
Democrats are restricted in their influence, however. Vice
President-elect Kamala Harris, as head of the Senate, would likely need
to serve as the tie-breaker in some votes. In the House, Democrats lost
seats in the recent election, thinning their margin.
And the reconciliation process applies only to budgetary matters,
meaning lawmakers couldn’t use it to push through large,
education-specific proposals. Tuition-free college as Biden has
envisioned it — with two-year colleges having no cost, and public
four-year schools free for families earning up to $125,000 — will
likely never come to fruition, experts said.
Outsiders have raised the idea of altering legislative rules to enable
more sweeping change, namely by nixing the filibuster, but this was
shot down by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a longtime centrist whose vote
will be influential in the new Congress. He has said he would not vote
to eliminate the stall tactic.
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