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Category: Higher Education

The FY2020 Deal

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After weeks of negotiations, Congressional leaders released last evening the long-awaited texts of the FY2020 appropriations bills.

As we noted before, the 12 bills were combined into two massive legislative packages.  The first package is the “defense” package and consists of the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), Financial Services-General Government, and Homeland Security measures.  The second “non-defense” package consists of the remaining spending bills—Labor-HHS-Education (LABOR-HHS), Agriculture, Energy and Water, Interior, Legislative Branch, Military Construction, State-Foreign Operations, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development—and a host of other bills and provisions of policy importance but not directly related to appropriations.

The House is expected to vote and pass the measures today, and the Senate is expected to pass both measures by Thursday, prior to the Continuing Resolution expiring.

The President is expected to sign the measures.

We will provide additional details throughout the week.  Here is an initial breakdown of how various agencies and programs would fare in FY2020 under this package of bills. This post will be updated.

LABOR-HHS

National Institutes of Health

  • Overall: $41.7 billion (including $492 million from 21st Century Cures Act)—increase of $2.6 billion
    • $2.8 billion for Alzheimer’s research
    • $3.1 billion for HIV/AIDS research
    • $500 million for Precision Medicine
    • $500 million for BRAIN Initiative
    • $195 million for Cancer Moonshot
  • Fogerty: $80.76 million and increase of $2.65 million

HRSA

  • Title VII Health Professions and Title VIII Nursing workforce development programs receive  $684.5 million — a $42.8 million (7%) increase.
    • The legislation includes first-time funding for the Loan Repayment Program for Substance Use Disorder Treatment Work and Mental and Substance Use Disorder Workforce Training Demonstrations within the Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program

CDC

  • Overall:  $8 billion – increase of $636 million
  • NIOSH: $342 million– increase of $6.5 million

Other HHS items of note:

  • The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, which funds the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), is reauthorized through FY2029.
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is level funded at $338 million.
  • The Administration is prohibited from lowering F&A rates.
  • NIH salary caps remain at Executive Level II.
  • $25 million for gun research. Out of the $25 million set aside, $12.5 will be from the CDC and the other $12.5 will come from the NIH. The Dickey amendment language remains in place and CDC cannot use the funding to lobby in favor of gun control.
  • Delay scheduled Medicaid DSH allotment reductions through May 22, 2020

Department of Education

  • Pell Grants: maximum award of $6,345 – increase of $150
  • SEOG: $865 million – increase of $25 million
  • Federal work study: $1.18 billion – increase of $50 million
  • TRIO: $1.09 billion – increase of $30 million
  • GEAR-UP: $365 million – increase of $5 million
  • GAANN: $23 million – level funded
  • Institute for Education Sciences: $623.5 million – increase of $8 million
  • International Education/ Title VI programs: $76.1 million – increase of $4 million

Also, the measure would require the Department of Education to brief Congress on how they are administering of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Temporary Extended Public Loan Forgiveness programs.

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS): $252 million — increase of $10 million

CJS

National Science Foundation

  • Overall: $8.278 billion – increase of $203 million
  • Research and Related Activities: $6.737 billion – increase of $217 million
  • Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction: $243.23 million – decrease of $52.5 million
  • Education and Human Resources: $940.0 million – increase of $30 million

NASA

  • Overall: $22.63 billion – an increase of$1.13 billion
  • Space Grant: $48.0 million – increase of $4 million

NOAA

  • Overall: 3.76 billion – increase of $167 million
  • NOAA Climate Research: $169.5 million – increase of $10.5 million
    • Climate Research Cooperative Institutes: $66.5 M – increase of $5.5 million
  • Integrated Ocean Observing System Regional Operations: $39.5 million—increase of $0.5 million
  • Sea Grant: $87 million total, including Aquaculture – increase of $6 million
    • Aquaculture: $13 million – increase of $1 million

 

INTERIOR

  • Overall: $13.5 billion – increase of $545 million
  • USGS (part of Interior):  $1.27 billion increase – of $110.4 million 
  • Climate Adaptation Science Centers: $38.3 million – increase of $13.0 million
  • Cooperative Research Units: $24 million – increase of $5.5 million
  • ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning: $19 million – increase of $2.9 million, plus an additional $6.7 million for infrastructure
  • EPA: $9.06 billion  – increase of $208 million
  • EPA Science: $716.4 million
    • EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grant program: $6 million
    • $6 million for Harmful Algal blooms
  • National Endowment for the Arts: $162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million
  • National Endowment for the Humanities: 162.25 million – increase of $7.25 million

 

ENERGY

  • Overall: $38.586 billion – increase of $2.9 billion
  • Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy: $425 million – increase of $59 million
  • Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $2.79 billion – increase of $411 million
  • Office of Science: $7 billion – increase of $415 million
    • $71 million for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning across the six Office of Science programs
    • $195 million for Quantum Information Sciences including
      • $120 million to carry out a basic research program on quantum information science
      • $75 million for the establishment of up to five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers
  • Fusion Energy Sciences Research: $414 million — reduction from $432 million

 

Other Items of Note:

  • Repeal of the parking tax: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) tax on employer provided parking and transportation benefits as unrelated business income.
  • Repeal of the “kiddie” tax: (taxing nonqualified scholarship amounts for minors at the higher, trust rate rather than nominal tax rate).  This glitch in TCJA caused a child’s unearned income over $2,100 to subsequently be taxed at the trusts and estates rate instead of their parents’ top marginal tax rate, including taxable scholarship amounts.
  • Retroactive reinstatement and extension of the above-the-line tuition deduction, which expired at the end of 2017.  The bill reinstates the deduction from 12/31/2017 until 12/31/2020.

Higher Ed. Associations Support OPT in Letter to State Dept.

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Various higher education associations addressed a letter, dated December 9th, 2019, to Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce expressing concerns about the future of OPT. UW is a member of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) and Association of American Universities (AAU), which both signed the letter circulated by the American Council on Education. The letter requests that the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs meet with the Department of Homeland Security and relevant agencies to affirm the future of OPT and address long visa processing times.

Executive Order on Antisemitism

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President Trump has signed an executive order aimed at tackling antisemitism on college campuses. The order gives Jewish persons special protections under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which is enforced by the Department of Education. Under statute, Title VI only gives protection for race, color, or national origin. In a press statement at a White House Hanukkah event, President Trump said colleges would be ineligible for federal funds if they “traffic in anti-Semitic hate”.

UW Joins Amicus Brief Supporting OPT

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On November 21, UW joined over 100 other higher education institutions in filing an amicus brief in the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers Union vs. U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (Washtech) litigation. The amicus brief was filed by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, and affirms support for Optional Practical Training (OPT). OPT is an invaluable component of American higher education and greatly contributes to the US economy. The full brief can be found here.

ED Releases Fall 2019 Regulatory Agenda

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On Wednesday, the Department of Education (ED) released its Fall 2019 Unified Regulatory Agenda. The agenda includes a number of areas for proposed rulemaking that carried over from Spring 2019, as well as a new proposed rule on campus free speech. Of note, the final Title IX regulations are in the final stage at OMB. The final rules could be delayed into 2020.

Typically the public comment window is 60 days, but the Administration has allowed for just 30 days in some instances. While ED often does not make major changes to its proposed rules, public comments can result in positive improvements to the final regulations.

 

Timeline for Forthcoming Proposed Rules 

  • NEW: Regulations on Campus Free Speech, November 2019
  • Regulations on FERPA, January 2020
  • Updating regulations on HEA Title III and V programs, March 2020
  • Creating a priority for faculty member research opportunities within the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP), May 2020
  • Updating regulations for the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program, May 2020