Senate Appropriations Committee Releases Guidance for Earmarks

Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME) released additional guidance regarding each subcommittee’s eligibility criteria for requests. For the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education subcommittee, examples listed for types of projects improving postsecondary education include “to hire and train faculty, establish and improve degree programs, improve teacher preparation programs, develop and improve curricula, upgrade technology, equipment, and telecommunications, provide student support, and implement university partnerships with school districts.”

Deadlines for earmark requests for all 12 spending bills:

• Agriculture — March 31
• Commerce-Justice-Science — April 5
• Defense (not accepting earmarks) — April 14
• Energy-Water — March 30
• Financial Services — March 31
• Homeland Security — April 11
• Interior-Environment — April 4
• Labor-HHS-Education —April 13
• Legislative Branch (not accepting earmarks) —March 30
• Military Construction-VA — April 7
• State-Foreign Operations (not accepting earmarks) —April 12
• Transportation-HUD —April 6

“Every student and their family deserve to know the full costs of taking out a loan to pay for college before they make such an important decision,” said Senator Manchin in a press release. “I’m proud to introduce the bipartisan STUDENT Act to provide greater transparency around student loan borrowing and ensure families have all of the facts necessary to learn the best way to finance a college education. I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense, bipartisan legislation.”

Legislation was also introduced by Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA) to end the current suspension of student loan payments. Titled the Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act, the legislation would end the suspension of repayments on qualifying federal student loans and prohibit the president from cancelling federal student loans due to a national emergency. The Biden Administration’s Student Debt Relief Program is on hold as the Supreme Court considers its legality.

Given the growth in online enrollment and associated federal student debt, the Department is seeking public input to understand the impact of this exception and whether any updates are necessary to the guidance. Listening sessions are scheduled for March 8 from 1-4 pm ET and March 9 from 1-4 pm ET. To register for the listening sessions, click here. Individuals who would like to present comments at the virtual listening sessions must register by sending an email message to Margo.Schroeder@ed.gov no later than 12:00 p.m., ET, on the business day prior to the listening session at which they want to speak.

The Department of Education also released updated guidance that clarifies when organizations that contract with institutions of higher education are considered regulated entities known as third-party servicers. The guidance clarifies when companies and others who provide recruitment services to institutions of higher education will fall into the third-party servicers category. The updated guidance will ensure the Department has full transparency into and more data on the companies that work with institutions of higher education in areas that relate to federal financial aid. Institutions of higher education will have until May 1, 2023, to report any arrangements with third-party servicers that have not already been reported to the Department, detail the services the entity performs on behalf of the institution, and disclose the timeframe of the agreement. For more information, please read the full guidance here.

CGS and the higher education community have asked the Department of Education for additional time to respond to the guidance concerning third-party servicers. Please read the letter here.

Through SBMH, the Department awarded $131.8 million to states and school districts to increase the number of qualified mental health services providers delivering school-based mental health services to students. Through MHSP, the Department awarded $46.7 million to states, school districts, and institutions of higher education to train school-based mental health services providers for employment in schools and local educational agencies (LEAs). Many awardees of the MHSP program are CGS members.

The Department encourages comments from impacted institutions of higher education; researchers, academics, policy experts, and other individuals familiar with First Amendment rights and institutional policies; organizations that work on First Amendment issues, including those that work directly with institutions and students; students and other members of the public. The deadline for submissions is March 24, 2023.

The Department invites comments as to:

1. Whether and how the current regulations have affected or are reasonably expected to affect decisions surrounding First Amendment and free speech-related litigation in Federal and State court;
2. How these regulations have affected or are reasonably expected to affect public IHEs’ approach to designing institutional policies related to First Amendment protections, including on-campuses processes used to address alleged free speech and academic freedom violations;
3. How these regulations have affected or are reasonably expected to affect private IHEs’ approach to designing institutional policies related to free speech and academic freedom, including on-campuses processes used to address alleged free speech and academic freedom violations;
4. Whether and how these grant conditions have provided additional protections of First Amendment rights in the case of public colleges, or promotion of free speech and free inquiry policies in the case of private institutions;
5. Whether these regulations affect or could be expected to affect how aggrieved campus community members seek resolution to alleged free speech and academic freedom policy violations;
6. Whether these regulations have resulted in additional quantifiable costs beyond what was considered in the 2020 final rule;
7. Any other information that the public believes would inform the Department’s understanding of the impact of these regulations.