Today, one of the nation’s largest purveyors of for-profit higher education, the DeVry Education Group, made a commitment to limit how much revenue it receives from federal student aid to 85 percent. Federal law stipulates that no more than 90 percent of revenue originate from federal aid. The move is broadly viewed as a response to broad criticisms of the for-profit education industry.
Eager to know more? Check out coverage from the Washington Post here.
This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delayed a procedural vote on the stopgap spending bill until 5:15 p.m. Tuesday. McConnell, R-Ky., also said he anticipates the Senate will be in session next week. The postponed procedural vote is on the expected legislative vehicle for the CR (HR 5325).
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the the procedural vote (cloture vote) to proceed with the continuing resolution has been moved. The vote is now scheduled to take place at 2:15 pm on Tuesday.
Stay tuned.
Negotiations to craft a 10-week continuing resolution (CR) continued throughout the weekend as Congressional Leadership worked to nail down an agreement ahead of a Monday night procedural vote in the Senate. At 5:30 pm tonight, the Senate is scheduled to take a procedural vote, a cloture vote, intended to move forward with the package. It should be noted that Senate Leadership announced and planned on having a vote on this package last week, before it became clear a final bill was not yet reached.
While Republicans and Democrats are getting close to an agreement, sticking points remain with the package. Those issues include:
As a reminder, Congress has until September 30 to pass the continuing resolution and avert a partial government shutdown when FY 2016 funding expires. The FY 2017 measure is expected to adhere to FY 2016 spending levels and run through December 9, one week before Congress is scheduled to adjourn for the December holidays.
The Senate is expected to use the FY 2017 Legislative Branch appropriations bill (HR 5325), which previously passed the House, as a vehicle for the CR. The spending package is also expected to include full-year FY 2017 appropriations for veterans programs and military construction projects.
If the measure passes on Monday, expect the Senate to recess until after the election Thursday or Friday. If the Senate passes and leaves, that forces the House into a take it or leave it position with the CR that the Senate passes, meaning pass the Senate bill or shut down the federal government just before an election. And shutting down the government was not very popular last time it happened.
Keep in mind, this fight will continue next year and play into a larger spending argument, as the nation’s debt limit will be reached in March of next year. The battle could begin as early as March, when the current suspension of any debt limit — negotiated as part of a bipartisan budget deal last year — is set to expire. But Congress could punt the decision for several more months, because of the Treasury’s ability to use financial mechanisms to continue borrowing past the March 15 deadline into the fall.
Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.
We Just Don’t Like You – After a tough week for both candidates, Trump isn’t doing well, but neither is Clinton. While national polls still show Clinton with a lead, it’s becoming more obvious that Clinton is the least-popular major party nominee of all time — except for Donald Trump. Read more in Vox.
Path Forward – With the new round of polling, it looks like Trump has a path forward to the magical 270 electoral votes. Read more in Politico.
Minibus or Bigbus? – In January, House and Senate vowed to move all 12 individual spending bills, something that hadn’t been accomplished in more than a decade. That leaves Republicans with the challenge of funding the government for the next fiscal year, which has in the past been done through passage of an omnibus that piles all 12 appropriations bills together…or in a series of piles considered “minibuses”. Neither of which has much political will to happen. Read more in The Hill.
I’m Not That Guy – Last year, Speaker Ryan reluctantly shoved through an omnibus package after Boehner’s resignation and his own surprise ascension to the Speakership. The omnibus was a last testament to Boehner’s troubled leadership. House conservatives pressured him to resign after they grew sick of him ramming through last-minute, backroom spending deals with Democrats. This year, Ryan’s probably going to have to do the same thing again. Read more in The Hill.
Take Note – A coalition of 40 civil rights, legal-aid and public-interest groups is urging the Education Department to track and monitor the effect of student loans on people of color, who are shouldering the burden of education debt. Read more in The Washington Post.
Um, the Books? – SUNY Stoney Brook has a partnership with Amazon, now the university’s official book retailer. Students can purchase texts through a Stony Brook-specific Amazon page and have them delivered to campus. In the campus store, where the textbooks used to be, there are now adult coloring books, racks of university-branded polos and windbreakers and three narrow bookshelves displaying assorted novels. The rest of the store is a vibrant collage of spirit wear and school supplies: backpacks and baseball caps; pompom hats and striped scarves; notebooks and correction fluid. Read more in the New York Times.
Well Endowed – One of the most polarizing issues in higher education took center stage on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as House members questioned whether universities could do more with their tax-exempt endowments to help families struggling with the high costs of college. Read more in The Washington Post.
Best Towns – It’s that time of year again when college students are streaming back to school. Across the nation, some 17 million Americans are headed to college this fall. But, where, exactly, are they heading to? To get at this, we charted America’s biggest and best college towns based on 2014 enrollment data for some 750 metro and micropolitan locations across the U.S. Read more in The Atlantic’s CityLab.
Best of the Best – USNews is out with it’s annual “Best of” Rankings on Colleges. Princeton came out on top. However, thanks to the Internet, there’s a plethora of rankings for just about every aspect of college life including best bars, best green colleges, best radio stations, best dorms. Read more at The Washington Post.
Buying Bacon – You’ve probably seen and handled supermarket bacon countless times. The standard one-pound package shows the bacon slices fanned out, with only their leading edges exposed. Those front edges tend to feature more lean muscle than the fattier back edges creating the illusion that the bacon is leaner than it is. Thus selling more bacon. Read more in Bloomberg.
The Rise of Chickens – Think chicken is every where? You can thank the Catholic Church. Read more in Science.