Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions has formed bipartisan, full committee staff working groups that will focus on four key areas for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
- The areas of focus will be accountability, accreditation, affordability and financial aid, and campus sexual assault, according to eCampus News.
- The committee's chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), said he wants to start from scratch during the reauthorization process and remove outdated regulations and detrimental aspects of the 1,000-page law, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
Legislators are currently working on the ninth reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which was first passed in 1965. Alexander has said that many initially well-intentioned pieces of legislation and regulation have simply built up over the decades, and as chairman of the education committee, he intends to prevent that from happening yet again. Alexander released a series of white papers in March indicating his areas of focus for reauthorization, and these areas are now being further explored in the working groups. The committee is expected to come up with a first draft of legislation by the fall.