A Huge Bipartisan Win

By Evan Mintz, communications director

New federal legislation could help expand evidence-based student success programs in higher education and bolster college accountability – but lawmakers need to make sure their proposed reforms avoid unintended consequences.
 

What’s Happening: This week the House Committee on Education and the Workforce considered the College Cost and Reduction Act, which will create incentives to bring down the costs of college and will help hold institutions accountable for student outcomes. Arnold Ventures has submitted a letter to the committee offering our perspective.
 

Why It Matters: Postsecondary education provides the surest path to economic mobility and valuable careers, but around 40 percent of students don’t earn a degree within six years and many graduates end up with low-paying jobs and unaffordable student debt. This bill creates a foundation on which lawmakers can build bipartisan, bicameral discussions on ways to get at these problems.

What’s Next: As Congress debates this bill, lawmakers will have to ensure they also protect already existing regulations created to protect students and taxpayers from unaccountable higher education institutions, such as the gainful employment rule, the 90/10 rule, and borrower defense rules.

Read our letter to the House committee >

Criminal Justice

• ABC News reports on how North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper recently signed an executive order that provides workforce training and tools for incarcerated people to improve reintegration outcomes and reduce recidivism.
   
• In the Lake County News-Sun, a former journalist for the paper who previously believed that Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act would be a “recipe for disaster” now admits that the law appears to be working and is improving equity and community safety.
   
• The latest story in AL.com’s series on the problems with Alabama’s parole system investigates the case of Stacy Shadwrick, a 53-year old woman who, in 1993, was sentenced to life in prison for robbery under the state’s strict habitual offender law. Given the state’s plummeting parole rates, Shadwrick faces an uphill battle to be released from prison despite no disciplinary infractions and a letter from the judge who sentenced her asking for leniency.

• AV Executive Vice President of Health Care Mark E. Miller released a statement this week on the proposed Medicare Advantage and Part-D rate notice.
   
• AV grantee Altarum found 68% of consumers in North Carolina had experienced at least one health care affordability burden in the prior year; 85% reported being worried or very worried about affording health care in the in future; and 61% reported delaying or going without care for cost-related reasons in the prior year in its North Carolina consumer experience survey.
   
• Small Business for America’s Future released a new survey that reveals small business owners want prescription drug cost reform amid Medicare price negotiations.

• Federal regulations intended to streamline the authorization process for distance education institutions might be unintentionally weakening state oversight, leaving students vulnerable to predatory behavior, according to a two-part report by the Postsecondary Equity & Economics Research Project, an AV grantee.
   
• Higher Ed Dive reports on a proposal from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro that would create a performance-based funding model for all publicly funded colleges.

• The Los Angeles Times’ Sammy Roth writes about how the “lithium revolution” has come to California’s Salton Sea.
   
• With one-third of residents having rooftop solar and giant batteries storing that power for after sunset, Hawaii is becoming America’s clean energy paradise, USA Today reports.
   
• Bloomberg covered the National Zoning Atlas,  a collaborative effort aimed at documenting and digitizing the nation’s 30,000 zoning codes.
   
• The Bipartisan Policy Center has published its report on the “Goldilocks Zone” for permitting reform, identifying solutions that balance effectiveness and controversy.

• Nick Trioano, executive director of Unite America, outlines his path from student to candidate to election reform advocate in text from his upcoming book published in Real Clear Politics.