Introduction by Barbara K. Mistick
Dear Collegues,
While considerable attention is being given to the executive orders and other actions coming out of the White House, members of Congress have their heads down doing their work and are not getting distracted by events happening down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Evidence of this focus is the advancement of the budget reconciliation process through its first official procedural steps with the Senate approving its more conservative framework last Friday and the House moving forward with a more aggressive approach earlier this week. Under the Senate bill the committees we are most focused on – education and tax – would each have to produce a minimum of $1 billion in savings while the House bill would require the education committee to save $330 billion. (See our story below for more details.) The House targeted amount assumes the enactment of the College Cost Reduction Act that we fought so hard to ensure didn’t pass last December.
The two chambers will now meet to determine and pass a common resolution. While the Senate $1 billion target would seem to provide better protections for student loans and against institutional risk sharing, the Senate proposal is a floor, and it is widely anticipated that larger cuts to student loans would be likely under this proposal.
While the arcane nature of the budget process is not what NAICU members need to focus on, what is important is that you continue to engage with your elected representatives about how the reconciliation process could hurt both students and institutions. I encourage you to continue these conversations with your Members of Congress and their staff. The talking points on budget reconciliation from our recent Advocacy Day remain current and can be used to tailor your communications.
On a parallel track, NAICU staff continues to meet with key committee staff, conduct legislative research and analyses, and coordinate with our members, including our Secretariat and State Executive networks, on outreach activities. This week, we also emailed education and tax staff specialists in all 535 House and Senate offices to advocate for our reconciliation priorities and to provide them with the federal student aid data sheets for their state and each congressional district in their state. As we did this week, together we must continue our parallel efforts to convey our reconciliation concerns and priorities to Congress.
McMahon Nomination. The Senate advanced Linda McMahon’s nomination to be Education Secretary yesterday in a 51-47 vote, setting her up for a final confirmation vote that is expected to occur on Monday.
CICC. I’m pleased to report that the Congressional Independent Colleges Caucus (CICC) has officially relaunched for the 119th Congress and has added two new members. Joining CICC are Reps. Darin LaHood (R-IL) and John McGuire (R-VA), who were recruited during NAICU’s recent Advocacy Day. These additions bring the bipartisan caucus to 56 members. If you would like to know how you can get your elected officials to join the caucus, please contact Suzanne Vieth at Suzanne@naicu.edu or consult NAICU’s CICC resource page.
Soundbites
- Letter Seeks Rescission of new DEI Guidance. NAICU helped frame and signed on to higher education community comments calling on the Department of Education to rescind its recent guidance on DEI. The letter notes that the “ambiguous language” contained in the guidance “has only led to confusion on campuses about their compliance responsibilities” and therefore should be rescinded.
- Court Blocks DOGE. A federal court temporarily blocked the Department of Education from sharing personal information from its databases with the Department of Government Efficiency, citing likely violations of the federal Privacy Act.
- TRO on Indirect Costs. A federal judge in Massachusetts extended the temporary restraining order blocking the Trump Administration’s reduction in funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH) indirect cost payments to universities. The administration wants to reduce the facilities and administrative reimbursements for NIH research grants to 15%. The next step is for the court to decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction, which would, unless appealed, halt the proposed cuts until the court makes a decision on the merits of the case.
- Batch Correction Functionality Available in March. The Department of Education announced that batch corrections functionality will be available to institutions before the end of March with an exact date forthcoming in a separate announcement. Once batch corrections are available, all previously submitted corrections will be cleared from the queue, so institutions must resubmit any batch corrections that they still need to make from either the 2024-25 or the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid cycle.
I hope you have a pleasant weekend.
Regards,
Barbara
Barbara K. Mistick D.B.A.
President, NAICU