Ed Trust Higher Education Act (HEA) Priorities
Mar 27, 2018
Improve college affordability for low-income students, students of color, and other vulnerable populations
- Strengthen the Pell Grant program by restoring annual inflation adjustments and increasing maximum awards
- Provide postsecondary education programs to individuals who are incarcerated and/or impacted by the criminal justice system
- Expand opportunities for Dreamers to pursue a higher education
Align federal investments with campus performance on equitable access and completion
- Maintain and strengthen accountability provisions currently in place, including the 90/10 rule and gainful employment regulation — which aim to cap federal funding of for-profit colleges and hold career training programs accountable for providing labor market return on investments among graduates
- In addition to maintaining and strengthening the accountability provisions currently in place, create pressure and support for the entire higher education system to improve for historically underserved students (i.e., low-income students and students of color) by doing the following:
- Establish minimum standards for institutions on enrolling historically underserved students and for improving student performance and outcomes on measures such as retention, transfer, graduation, and job placement;
- Sustain and increase investments in low-resourced institutions to support the implementation of evidence-based strategies that improve completion, especially for low-income students and students of color;
- Reward institutions for making continual growth toward reaching ambitious access and success goals within a reasonable time; and
- Enforce meaningful consequences for institutions that continue to underperform after getting needed resources, time, and support to reach minimum enrollment and performance standards.
- Improve higher education data systems to provide reliable, consistent and useable information needed to construct effective accountability and oversight systems by doing the following:
- Overturn the ban on creating a student unit record system;
- Create a student level data network that disaggregates data by race and income;
- Ensure privacy and security for sensitive student information such as citizenship status, discipline records, and criminal history; and
- Improve IPEDS so that data on critical measures of student success are disaggregated by race and income.
Support innovation and the scaling of evidence-based practices for improving completion
- Fund efforts to help campuses identify, implement, scale up, and evaluate programs that improve completion for the students who are most at risk of dropping out, including low-income students and students of color
- Target these funds to the institutions that serve high proportions of historically underserved students