Senate Committee Hears Merits of Year-Round College

Witnesses at a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday discussed the merits of a year-round calendar for colleges and universities and more flexibility in the federal student aid programs to support such calendars, saying students and institutions would benefit.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, and Pensions heard from Stephen Trachtenberg, president, George Washington University (DC); Michael Lomax, president; Dillard University (LA); Virginia Hazen, director of financial aid, Dartmouth College (NH); Margaret Heisel, executive director of outreach and student affairs, University of California; and India McKinney, student at Vanderbilt University (TN).

Trachtenberg outlined a number of advantages to using college facilities year round including less competition for housing or classes; more income for the university; and lower tuition for students. “Imagine that instead of two 14-week semesters we had three trimesters - with appropriate vacations,” Trachtenberg testified. “Students might be on campus for only two of the trimesters. At GW, we could increase our enrollment by at least a thousand students; yet have fewer students on campus at any one time.”

Trachtenberg went on to say that a year-round schedule would allow some degrees to be offered in three years rather than four. For the federal government’s role, Trachtenberg told the committee that students should be allowed to use their Pell Grants and Stafford loans for 12 months of study rather than the traditional nine months.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said he hopes to explore a year-round Pell Grant, more flexibility in the loan program’s annual and cumulative loan limits, and what effect year-round calendars would have on Federal Work-Study programs. “I want to consider a commission that would gather accurate information about today’s college calendar among the more than 6,500 higher education institutions in America, consider what the impact would be of a year-round calendar and then recommend to what extent and how the federal government should encourage such a calendar,” Alexander said.