Dear Colleagues,

This week’s major political news is that Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) has been elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives after 22 days of the chamber not having a leader. With Johnson now seated, the focus of legislative business has quickly turned to funding the federal government before the end of the current continuing resolution on November 17.

Johnson outlined a schedule for finalizing FY 2024 funding to his members that includes bringing the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill to a floor vote the week of November 13. This bill currently includes the elimination of funding for the Federal Work-Study (FWS) and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG) programs.

With two weeks left to make funding decisions, all advocacy groups will be reinforcing their requests. If the House does not hear from college presidents and students about the importance of FWS, SEOG, and Pell Grant funding, other programs will get the resources. Please reinforce your messages to your congressional delegation and activate your campus in support of funding FWS, SEOG, and Pell. Here is our Action Alert, with talking points included, to help with your outreach. Students can also share their voice and their stories by using the Student Aid Alliance Contact Congress letter.

Congress and the Administration continue to have concerns about foreign influence from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, countries the State Department has defined as “countries of concern.” As a follow up to the introduction of Chairwoman Virginia Foxx’s (R-NC) DETERRENT Act, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Chairman of the bipartisan House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, made a speech to the Association of American Universities highlighting what colleges and universities need to do to be prepared for unwanted “foreign malign influence,” particularly from the countries of concern. Protecting international students, being cautious about partnerships and research collaborations with these countries, and restricting foreign investment in institutions of higher education are top line points Gallagher made in his speech.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education dropped another 700-page regulatory package that provides final rules on issues from the May NPRM, that will go into effect on July 1, 2024. While NAICU continues to analyze the details of the package and prepare a summary to help you prepare for implementation, you can find out more about the issue areas being addressed in our story below.

This week’s Washington Update also reports on tools and resources the Department of Education has created to help students and families prepare for the release of the new FAFSA form in December.

Soundbites

• Overtime Rule Update. This week, NAICU joined the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity (PPWO) and 86 other organizations representing employers across the country in sending a letter to every member of Congress requesting that they urge the Department of Labor (DOL) to withdraw its proposal to increase the threshold for overtime pay. The coalition is pushing members of Congress who are also concerned about the impact of the proposal to weigh in with DOL prior to the November 7 deadline for submitting comments.

• The House Committee on Ways and Means held a hearing this week focused on expanding IRC Sec. 529 college saving plans to allow savings to be used for technical and trade school education expenses. Currently, Sec. 529 plan savings can only be used for qualified expenses at colleges and universities, and up to $10,000 annually for both K-12 qualified expenses, and student loan repayments.

As I’m writing this, there is an ongoing manhunt in Maine related to the horrific mass shooting in Lewiston. I mourn and pray for those whose lives were so needlessly taken and those who are suffering because of these senseless attacks. I know we all also send special thoughts of support to our friends at Bates College who have faced a campus situation that all of us hope we will never have to face, but that is also familiar to too many in our NAICU family.

Regards,

Barbara

Barbara K. Mistick, D.M.
President, NAICU