Last month, House Republicans advanced a massive budget reconciliation bill that proposed some of the most damaging changes to federal student aid in decades. The House plan would have sharply curtailed the Pell Grant, eliminated subsidized loans for undergraduates, ended several income-driven repayment plans like SAVE, and imposed blunt new penalties on colleges.This week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions released its response. While the proposal eliminates or walks back several of the House bill’s most harmful provisions, the legislation still poses a serious threat to students and institutions.
Most importantly, the Senate version omits the elimination of subsidized loans and steers clear of the House’s attempt to limit Pell Grant access—an outcome shaped by advocacy from ACE, the broader higher education community, and the many higher education leaders who have spoken up and who will continue to do so. It also replaces the House’s across-the-board institutional penalties known as “risk-sharing” with a more tailored accountability framework tied to student earnings after they leave an institution. For a summary of the Senate bill, click here.
These changes are important. Outreach to lawmakers over the past two weeks has made a meaningful impact. But this bill still does real harm, and ACE and the higher education community will keep pushing for changes.
The Senate proposal still includes damaging caps on student loans, ends Grad PLUS loans, and significantly limits Parent PLUS. The accountability proposal, though far better than what we saw in the House, still needs improvements to ensure that negative unintended consequences do not occur.
President Trump wants this bill on his desk by July 4, but key senators—including Republican Ted Cruz of Texas—have said the chamber may not meet that deadline. That may give more time to keep pushing, but Republican congressional leaders in both chambers, at the urging of the administration, are doing everything they can to move this quickly. ACE’s advocacy toolkit remains live, with updated tools to help contact senators directly.