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A top Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Education Committee has publicly acknowledged it is unlikely that the Higher Education Act (HEA) will be renewed this year. In a recent interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-CA), who chairs the Committee on Education and the Workforce's Subcommittee on Higher Education, said that he would not raise the vote for legislation he helped introduce last month to reauthorize the act before the 108th Congress adjourns this year.
ASHA has been working to increase grants and other incentives available to doctoral students in speech-language pathology and audiology through HEA and other related education bills as part of the 2004 Focused Initiative on Doctoral Shortages.
The subcommittee's consideration of the bill reportedly has stalled because of presidential-year politics and debates on the bill becoming too partisan. Although the higher education law expires this fall, the failure of Congress to act should not affect the student aid programs it governs. Federal agencies, like the National Institutes of Health, have continued to operate even though they have not been reauthorized.
Rep. McKeon noted that it would not make sense to force his Republican colleagues to vote on controversial provisions if the legislation was not moving forward. In addition, Senate Republican leaders have not yet introduced their own version of the legislation. It had been rumored that the Republican House leadership would not allow the legislation to reach the House floor due to concern that it would give Democrats ammunition to use against the White House and Republicans in Congress during an election year. For more information, please contact Neil Snyder, ASHA's director of federal advocacy, by e-mail at nsnyder@asha.org or by phone at 800-498-2071 ext. 4257.
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