There is bipartisan agreement that student loan debt is too high, completion rates are too low, and far too many students are left worse off after paying for postsecondary education than if they had never enrolled in the first place. House Republicans have stepped up to fix the underlying problems by introducing H.R. 6951, the College Cost Reduction Act (CCRA), which will lower college costs for s... Read more »
Today, Acting Secretary Julie Su stepped into the Committee arena for the second time in the 118th Congress to fight for yet another bloated budget request. Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) opened the hearing by addressing the elephant in the room—Acting Secretary Su’s still-pending Senate nomination. She is the longest pending nominee since at least the Civil War. Her status as President Biden’s “... Read more »
In case you missed it, during congressional testimony, Department of Labor (DOL) Acting Secretary Julie Su inadvertently admitted to not giving taxpayers adequate notice for a hearing on the administration’s far-reaching regulatory changes that will impact countless retirement plans, retirees, and savers. On Wednesday, in testimony before the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) que... Read more »
Today, top members of Columbia leadership, including President Minouche Shafik, answered for the disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment and discrimination engulfing their university campus. Since the barbaric attack on October 7, antisemitism—verging on support for Hamas terrorism—has been pervasive at Columbia, and university administrators have been left paralyzed in response. In her opening ... Read more »
Today’s Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee hearing commemorated the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). For the past 50 years, ERISA has served as the legislative bedrock for employer-sponsored benefits. Through key provisions such as ERISA preemption, the employer-sponsored benefits system continues to deliver health care val... Read more »
Today, the Workforce Protections Subcommittee held a hearing that covered potential ways to expand access to benefits to every American worker—not just those classified as employees. Nontraditional, independent work is exploding as a sector of the U.S. economy and is expected to constitute half of the workforce by 2027. However, under current law, nontraditional workers— those who do not receive a... Read more »
The Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee convened today to discuss the Department of Education’s (ED) botched rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). FAFSA is a critical tool for low-income students seeking financial aid. Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act at the end of 2020 with an effective date of July 2023 to implement a more streamline... Read more »
Today’s Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee hearing covered the gross mismanagement of taxpayer dollars by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The hearing featured a lone witness, PBGC Director Gordon Hartogensis. PBGC was created to protect private pension plans from insolvency and was intended to be solely funded by employer premiums. However, under poor leadership ... Read more »
Today, the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) and the Higher Education and Workforce Development (HEWD) subcommittees held a joint hearing covering the NLRB’s overreach into college athletics. In recent years, name, image, and likeness compensation has caused political controversy and legal uncertainty for college athletics. In the words of former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, th... Read more »
Divisive. Excessive. Ineffective. These three themes carried the day as the Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee convened to discuss the outsized influence of DEI bureaucracies on college campuses. DEI is a term that garners lots of attention and maybe more definitions. To adherents, it stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. To bureaucrats, it is a jobs program for social ... Read more »
