Help Us Maintain Campus Based Servicing-Important Advocacy Materials Are Attached!

As you may know, last week, Rep. Bobby Scott, Chair of the Education & Labor Committee, and House Democrats introduced the College Affordability Act (HR 4674), their latest attempt at reauthorizing the Higher Education Act (HEA). Full text can be found here:

Bill Text: https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/REINTRO_xml.pdf (Sections on Perkins are Sec. 4304 Pg. 537- Pg. 538 & Sec. 4401 Pg. 556 – Pg. 573)

While we are pleased that Rep. Scott has chosen to include a new Direct Loan Perkins, with an annual allocation of $2.4 billion, unfortunately, the bill does not allow for servicing to remain at the local level, conducted and controlled by individual institutions. We know that for many schools and COHEAO members, this will create a hardship and potentially negatively impact students who have benefited from the personalized financial support.

While we have concerns over other provisions in HR 4674, our primary focus as an organization is to try and restore campus based servicing. We hope that the House will amend the bill to give schools that so chose the option to continue to service at the local level.

We believe a committee mark-up of the legislation will likely occur sometime next week beginning on October 28. If you value campus based servicing, it is imperative that you contact Democrat and Republican members of the Education and Labor Committee to let them know your position.

To make that as easy as possible, we have included the following documents:

1. A complete list of every member of the Education and Labor Committee including email and phone numbers of their education policy staff.

2. A draft email template that you can use to contact staff about your concerns. Please feel free to modify it to fit your institution’s perspectives.

3. A one page summary discussing the importance of restoring campus based servicing.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact COHEAO’s Associate Executive Director Jared Solomon at jsolomon@bosepublicaffairs.com or by phone at 202-897-4191 (o) or 610-772-0630 (c).

Thank you for your work.