House Democrats Introduce HEA Reauthorization Proposal, Including a Version of AIM HIGH

In late July, Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced H.R. 6543, the Aim Higher Act. The bill would reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA), the federal law that sets forth the framework for national postsecondary education policy. At the end of 2017, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved the PROSPER Act, which is the Republican HEA reauthorization measure. The PROSPER Act was passed out of committee by a party-line vote of 23 to 17; no Democrats supported the bill. Although Aim Higher has no chance of getting a vote during this Congress, given the Republican-controlled House, the bill affords Democrats an opportunity to contrast their HEA proposal with the PROSPER Act, which large swaths of the higher education community opposed.

The Aim Higher Act includes several small items that may be of interest to EDUCAUSE members. First, the bill contains competency-based education (CBE) provisions, including the creation of a demonstration project (or pilot program) to explore how the federal government can best extend federal student aid access and associated quality assurance requirements to CBE programs. The bill additionally proposes to eliminate the ban on a federal student unit record database and establish a postsecondary data system to evaluate student-level data. The existence of the ban has been at the center of an ongoing debate between privacy advocates and those who support the creation of such a database for institutional evaluation purposes, with proponents of both positions to be found on either side of the political aisle. Further, the bill would continue a recently created grant program to expand the use of postsecondary open educational resources, which are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital resources.

But, perhaps most notably, the Aim Higher Act includes an iteration of the Accessible Instructional Materials in Higher Education (AIM HIGH) Act. EDUCAUSE was actively involved in negotiating the version of AIM HIGH introduced this Congress, H.R. 1772, and is a vocal supporter of the legislation. The original AIM HIGH bill would establish a commission of representatives from major stakeholder communities (including higher education) to develop voluntary accessibility guidelines for postsecondary instructional materials and related technologies. The measure would also provide a legal safe harbor for the use of materials and technologies that fully conform with the guidelines to incentivize institutional adoption. In addition, institutions could make use of a limited safe harbor, which would lessen potential financial penalties from accessibility lawsuits when an institution documents the relevant content or technology decision in line with the act's provisions.

There are several notable differences between the original, EDUCAUSE-supported version of AIM HIGH introduced in the House and the version of AIM HIGH included in the Aim Higher Act, however. The version incorporated in the Democrats' proposal removes all mention of the guidelines being "voluntary" and excludes the language included in the original bill that explicitly limits the ability of federal agencies to incorporate the guidelines into regulation solely by reference (rather than adopting the guidelines' concepts via normal rule-making to ensure their applicability to a given context). Further, it removes the safe-harbor provisions included in the original bill. It should also be acknowledged that the iteration included in Aim Higher does not track perfectly with the version of AIM HIGH introduced in the Senate (S.2138). Considering all the versions and their differences, it is evident there is a need for bipartisan, bicameral negotiation to reach a consensus bill. EDUCAUSE will continue to track and report on the progress of the various HEA reauthorization and AIM HIGH bills, as well as work with other stakeholder groups as the larger dialogue around these pieces of legislation moves forward.

Kathryn Branson is an associate with Ulman Public Policy.