Business Leaders Welcome U.S. Dept. of Education Action to Strengthen Higher Ed Through Rulemaking

By Dane Linn, Vice President, Immigration, Workforce & Education, Business Roundtable

America’s business leaders support efforts at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to update key provisions of the Higher Education Act (HEA). HEA is sorely in need of updating, and business leaders appreciate the Department undertaking a negotiated rulemaking process, which includes a range of stakeholders among them, the business community, including employers, to ensure U.S. higher education is working for students, employers and all Americans.

HEA provides federal support for higher education programs and over $150 billion a year in financial aid to students across America. As such, HEA is a critical tool for creating pathways from education to employment and for developing a modern U.S. workforce.

While Business Roundtable is committed to working with the 116th Congress to reauthorize and update HEA to strengthen the ties between business and higher education, we are also pleased that ED is acting on its authority to update key provisions of HEA that can be improved without requiring congressional approval.

We are especially pleased to see that many of the proposed updates from ED are focused on addressing regulations that have created barriers for students who seek new opportunities to learn the skills needed by today’s employers. In particular, the draft language in ED’s proposal takes a number of positive steps, including:

— Making it easier for institutions to establish competency-based programs that expand opportunities for students to earn degrees by demonstrating what they know vs. how long they sit in a classroom;

— Ensuring employers are more engaged in the review and consideration of new graduate programs;

— Requiring accrediting bodies to have standards and policies that are accepted by practitioners and employers;

— Expanding the ability for accredited institutions to work with other employer-driven providers of programs such as “boot camps” — enabling students participating in such programs to receive federal student aid;

— Ensuring that employers or practitioners are part of the decision-making bodies of programmatic accrediting agencies;

— Increasing the focus on outcomes by requiring accreditors to clearly define their expectations for the institutions and programs they accredit with respect to student achievement;

— Preventing credentialing boards from excluding the licensure of individuals who prepare for work through apprenticeships, the military or other work-based learning pathways; and

— Implementing current-law requirements to improve the information colleges must make available to students — including information on job placements of graduates.

We encourage the Department and negotiators to reach consensus on these critical updates that will strengthen the link between business and higher education and improve the pathways from education to employment for all Americans.

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