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On Sunday, March 21, 2010, following the passage by the House of the Senate-passed health care bill, S. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, by a vote of 219 to 212,. the House then proceeded to pass, by a vote of 220 to 211, H.R. 4872, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA), which includes sweeping reforms to the health care and student financial aid programs, including the elimination of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFEL), beginning July 1, 2010. As a result, the $61 billion in savings from eliminating subsidies to lenders will go toward expanding Pell Grants and other education initiatives.
Earlier in the day, Republicans had issued a Statement of Republican Policy that criticized the proposed government takeover of health care and student loans. Under this bill, all higher education institutions will be forced to switch into the Federal Direct Loan (DL) program by June 30, 2010, subjecting students, parents and schools to a one-size-fits-all government option, eliminating competition and consumer choice.
Later that week, during Senate debate of the reconciliation bill, Senate Republicans identified two Pell Grant provisions that were minor violations of the Byrd Rule, which were struck from the bill. The Byrd rule requires all provisions in a reconciliation bill to have a budgetary impact. The Senate passed the amended reconciliation bill by a vote of 56 to 43. This forced the House to reconsider the amended reconciliation bill, which was approved on the same day as the Senate vote, March 25, 2010, by a vote of 220 to 207.
The reconciliation bill includes many of the provisions included in the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) that had passed the House in September 2009:
Direct Loans: All loans first disbursed on July 1, 2010 must be originated through the Direct Loan Program;
FFEL Eliminated: No new (first disbursed) Stafford, PLUS, or consolidation loans may be disbursed through the FFEL program after June 30, 2010;
Pell Shortfall: The bill appropriates $13.5 billion to fund projected short-falls in the Pell appropriation levels through FY 2012;
Pell Grant Increases: The bill invests $36 billion into the Pell Grant Program over the next ten years to increase the annual Pell Grant to $5,550 in 2010-2011 to $5,975 by 2017-2018. Starting in the 2014-2015 award year, the mandatory add-on to the Pell Grant Program will increase annually based on changes to the Consumer Price Index;
Income-Based Repayment Plan: Beginning July 1, 2014, new borrowers will qualify for the Income-Based Repayment Plan if the borrowers standard repayment exceeds 10% of discretionary income (reduced from the current 15%). Discretionary income is the amount of the borrowers AGI that exceeds 150% of the poverty line for the borrowers family size. Loan forgiveness occurs after 20 years (currently it is 25 years);
In-School Consolidation: Borrowers who have loans in the Direct Loan Program, the FFEL Program, or loans purchased by the Department of Education under the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (ECASLA) may consolidate those loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan between July 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011. The borrower must have at least one loan in each of two of the three categories and have not yet entered repayment on at least one of those loans;
Direct Loans for Foreign Schools: Schools outside the United States are now eligible to participate in the Direct Loan Program;
College Access Challenge Grant Program: Funding for the program is increased to $150 million annually from FY 2010 to FY 2014. These formula grants allow states to help organizations provide services that will increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in college and manage their student loans, such as financial literacy and debt management skills;
Servicing Contracts for State Non-Profits: Non-profit state entities can be eligible for Direct Loan servicing contracts in that state;
TAA for Communities: The bill appropriates $500 million a year for fiscal years 2010 to 2014 in the Community College and Career Training Grant Program for community colleges to develop and improve educational and career training programs;
Assistance to Institutions: The Secretary is required to provide technical assistance to institutions of higher education participating or seeking to participate in the Direct Loan Program and is given $50 million for FY 2010 in funding to provide such assistance; and
HBCUs: The bill invests $2.55 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions to provide students with the support they need to stay in school and graduate.
Certain items were excluded from the reconciliation bill that had been included in the House-passed bill on September 17, 2009, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, H.R. 3221:
Because including those provisions could have posed a threat of being ruled out of order by the Senate, the Andrews/Souder 90/10 language that would have given institutions an additional fiscal year to meet the 90/10 the requirement was excluded as was the language that would have given proprietary schools two years of noncompliance before being moved to provisional status;
The proposal to extend the period from July 1, 2011 to July 1, 2012 whereby unsubsidized Stafford Loan borrowing authorized by ECASLA is treated as non-Title IV revenue was also excluded;
The proposal to restructure the Perkins Loan Program was eliminated because the House Democrats needed to find more savings to offset the costs of the health care provisions;
The proposal to eliminate asset data from the need analysis formula was excluded because of a need to find savings; and
The proposal to impose an income cap of $150,000 beginning on July 1, 2011 that would prohibit receipt of a Pell Grant or subsidized loan was also excluded from HCERA .because it did not meet the requirements of the Bryd Rule .
.
Democratic congressmen and administration officials hailed the bill as a historic investment in education. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said: To have the chance to put tens of billions of dollars into education is an extraordinary opportunity. House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-CA) praised the House for passing the largest investment in college aid in United States history:
Today Congress voted to stop wasting billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize,
big banks, and start investing that money directly in our students and families.
with this one move, we will help students pay for college, prepare them for our
global economy, keep jobs in America and reduce the deficit.
On March 31, 2010, The Washington Times reported that on March 30, 2010, the very day the President signed the reconciliation bill into law, the governments Web site for handing student loans was down most of the day. Visitors to the Web site HYPERLINK "http://www.studentloans.gov" www.studentloans.gov on March 30, 2010 saw an error message and visitors on Monday, March 29, 2010 either saw an error message or could not connect. According to a spokesman for Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), This is a case study in what happens when the federal government takes over a function of the private sector.
On March 30, 2010, President Obama signed into law, H.R. 4872, the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 at a signing ceremony at Northern Virginia Community College. President Obama stated that by cutting out the middlemen $68 billion in the coming years will be reinvested to make higher education more affordable. President Obama concluded his remarks by saying: Today we are making the student loan system work for students and families.
CBOIssues Report on "Costs and Policy Options for Federal Student Loan Programs," Saying Direct Loan Program Could Add to the $52 Billion to Deficit
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently issued a report titled "Costs and Policy Options for Federal Student Loan Programs," that indicated that H.R. 4872, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act ,could add $52 billion to the deficit between 2010 and 2020 when the cost of the market risks and administrative expenses of the loans are taken into consideration.
The March 2010CBO study says that "CBO recently estimated that whereas loans issued in the direct loanprogram between 2010 and 2020 would reduce the deficit by a total of $68 billion underFCRA [Federal Credit Reform Act] accounting, those loans would increase the deficit by $52 billion on a fair value basis." (See page IX of the Summary.)
CNSNews.comreported on March 31, 2010 that theCBO report further notes that it explained its calculations about the budgetary impact of the administration's plan to change the federal student loan programs and the $52 billion addition to the deficit in a March 15, 2010letter sent to Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. TheCBO study stated that the accounting mandated through theFCRA is the standard procedure used to record the budgetary costs of the government's direct and guaranteed loan programs. However, theCBO explained thatFCRA cost estimates exclude the value of "market risks" and the loan programs' "administrative expenses" while theCBO's "fair value" estimates take them into account. TheCBO report asserted that this discrepancy between the two estimates results in theFCRA figure being a less "comprehensive" appraisal of the true cost to the taxpayers of the direct loan program.CBO concluded that fair value estimates provide a more comprehensive measure that allows the costs of the two loan programs to be compared on a level playing field.
Department of Education Issues Letter Providing a High Level Description of Changes Made by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act
On April 2, 2010, the Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague letter (GEN-10-05), which provided the higher education community with a high level description of two of the major Federal student aid provisions of the recently enacted Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA). HCERA amends the HEA to provide for more stable and predictable funding for the Federal Pell Grant Program. It also modifies, beginning with the 2010-2011 Award Year, the calculation for determining an individual students Pell Grant award. On January 13, 2010, the Department issued the 2010-2011 Pell Grant Payment and Disbursement Schedules establishing the maximum Expected Family Contribution (EFC) as 4617. Because of the changes made by HCERA, the maximum EFC is 5273. The Department will have to issue revised 2010-2011 Pell Grant Payment and Disbursement Schedules next week. Because more students will become eligible, the Department advised that institutions wait until next week when the Schedules are released to begin packaging.
The Dear Colleague letter also advised the higher education community that after June 30, 2010, no new student loans will be made under the FFEL Program. Beginning July 1, 2010, all new subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford Loans made to students, PLUS loans made to parents and graduate/professional loans and consolidation loans made to borrowers can only be made under the Direct Loan Program. As a reminder, if the first disbursement of a FFEL was made by the lender on or before June 30, 2010, the second and any subsequent disbursements of that loan must be made by the FFEL Lender, even if the disbursement is made after June 30, 2010.
Over the next few weeks and months, the Department will provide more details on the implementation of the HCERA.
Dodd Bill Includes Private Student Loan Ombudsman
On March 22, 2010, the Senate Banking Committee approved, along party lines, financial reform legislation. Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced the Managers Amendment that includes a Private Loan Ombudsman within the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, which would be part of the Federal Reserve. Under the bill, the Ombudsman shall receive, review, and attempt to resolve informally complaints from private education loan borrowers. Private education loans are defined to be loans described in section 140 of the Truth in Lending Act (enacted as Title X of the Higher Education Opportunity Act). The private education loan Ombudsman would coordinate activities with the student loan Ombudsman within Federal Student Aid.
Sharon H. Bob, Ph.D.
Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville, P.C.
Seventh Floor
1501 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-872-6772
HYPERLINK "mailto:Sharon.bob@ppsv.com"Sharon.bob@ppsv.com
April 7, 2010
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