The
record of Betsy DeVos as an activist and advocate on K-12 education has
been picked over for more than a month. But relatively little is known
about her position on a range of issues that vex higher education policy
makers.
Tuesday’s confirmation hearing at the U.S. Senate’s Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will be the first time
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. secretary of education
has had to answer questions publicly about her thinking on student loan
debt, the role of for-profit colleges and accountability in higher
education. Democrats on the committee plan to question DeVos about her
long history of pursuing policy goals through dark money groups and
political donations -- including to members of both parties, but mostly
to Republicans. However, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts
Democrat, in a letter this week wrote that she was concerned about
DeVos’s “paper-thin record on higher education and student debt.”
Inside Higher Ed asked a number of people who work in or closely observe higher education what questions they would like to see DeVos answer.
Justin Draeger, president and CEO, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
Often, higher education gets overshadowed in confirmation hearings
with the focus being on elementary and secondary education. That’s a
shame because the U.S. Department of Education has become the
fifth-largest holding company in the U.S., with nearly $1.2 trillion in
total assets. What in Ms. DeVos’s background and experience has prepared
her to oversee this enormous lending operation and provide the
appropriate oversight over the Office of Federal Student Aid, the chief
operating officer and the strategic objectives of that organization?
Given the amount of interaction between financial aid administrators
and the department’s Office of Federal Student Aid, recent inspector
general and Government Accountability Office reports, and congressional
hearings and investigations, we would like to know what DeVos has
planned to improve the financial aid process implemented by Federal
Student Aid. Is she open to taking a wholesale look at restructuring FSA
to better serve students, schools, borrowers and other stakeholders? Is
she open to exploring, with Congress, ways to ensure that this agency
-- which disburses some $150 billion a year in financial aid -- is held
more accountable to the public and other stakeholders? What ideas is she
bringing to the table to improve the financial aid process, including
the financial aid application, funds disbursement, loan servicing and
the myriad other arcane processes that add little value to students or
taxpayers, but add a significant amount of complexity?
Finally, a common complaint among policy makers and higher education
stakeholders is that the department can do much better in providing data
about student aid programs, student outcomes and benefit utilization
rates. Recently, a government watchdog
questioned the budgetary estimates of income-driven repayment plans, and
we expressed concern
over the incredibly low number of borrowers currently on track for
Public Service Loan Forgiveness. How does Ms. DeVos view the
department’s obligations on data transparency to the public, and what
will she do to improve the data coming out of that agency?
King Alexander, president, Louisiana State University
In order to stop the federalization of public higher education (which
has been occurring for nearly three decades), what role does the
Department of Education have in ensuring that states do not completely
abandon their financial responsibilities to fund their public colleges
and universities?
Walter Kimbrough, president, Dillard University
Will you commit to strengthening the Pell Grant program, including
restoring summer Pell, raising maximum Pell and indexing Pell
permanently to account for inflation?
What is your understanding of the role of historically black colleges
and universities in American higher education, and do you have ideas on
how to invest in HBCUs?
Steve Gunderson, president and CEO, Career Education Colleges and Universities
The current Department of Education pursued an ideological war
against the postsecondary career schools. In doing so, they shut down
over 870 such schools, reducing enrollment by over 1.4 million. Can you
assure the committee that your department will not conduct a similar war
against any element of higher education?
Do you believe there should be one set of outcomes metrics for all schools where taxpayer dollars are invested?
Mark Huelsman, senior policy analyst, Demos
For several decades, per-student funding has stagnated or declined in
nearly every state, and with it tuition has continued to rise at public
colleges and universities -- the institutions nearly three in four
students attend. Rising prices and student debt impact students of color
and working-class students more acutely -- affecting aspirations and
relegating some students to greater unmet need, debt and risk of
noncompletion. What, specifically, do you believe is the role of the
federal government in addressing the decline in state funding and
lowering the net price of college at public institutions -- particularly
in an era of stagnant income and wealth for most families? Do you
approve of proposals to provide sufficient grant aid to low- and
middle-income students at public institutions so they can pay for
college with a part-time or summer job? Is there a federal role in
rewarding institutions for graduating high numbers of low-income
students while keeping prices low, and if so, what is that role?
Amy Laitinen, director for higher education with the education policy program at New America
The federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars every
year to help students go to college. And while there is no question that
college is worth it on average, there are too many low-quality programs
that leave students either degree-less in debt or with credentials that
leave them stuck in poverty-level jobs. What will you do to make sure
that taxpayer dollars are spent at institutions that provide students a
quality education? Do you believe students have the right to know
outcomes from specific programs at specific colleges so they can make
informed choices about where to spend their valuable time and money?
David Schafer, student body president, University of Michigan
I’m specifically interested in how Betsy DeVos would respond to
questions around the Obama administration’s Dear Colleague letters from
2011 and 2016, in which they outlined how universities and colleges
should respond to sexual assault and protect transgender students. Does
she plan to maintain these guidelines? What does she believe is the role
of the Department of Education in addressing and mitigating instances
of campus sexual assault?
Bob Shireman, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, former deputy under secretary of education under President Obama
Do you believe that there is a discernible unit of measure -- let’s
call it a “learning outcome” -- that can be counted and compared across
students and classes? If so, is the measure capable of comparing across
topics and disciplines, such as whether a history class produced more
learning than a biology class?
Rudy Fichtenbaum, president, American Association of University Professors; economics professor at Wright State University
It’s a little hard to know in a sense what to expect from DeVos with
respect to higher education since nearly her entire track record has to
do, really, with supporting privatization of public schools. I’d want to
know what kind of plans she has for providing support for low-income
students through Pell Grants. I’d like to know if she has any concern
about the fact that over half the people teaching in higher education
are part-time and are working for what amount to poverty wages.
Mark Schneider, vice president and institutes fellow at American Institutes for Research
What’s the role of private lending going to be?
Which regulations are the ones that are going to survive and which
ones need to go away? What’s going to happen to gainful employment?
What’s going to happen to borrower defense?
Those two to me, they’re
ripe for revisiting.
What are we going to do about endowments and the incredible concentration of wealth in the hands of so few universities?
What do we do when we have high failure rates in open-admission
schools?
What’s the role of risk-adjusted metrics?
What is the role of
information in advising students better?
Madeleine Kunin, former governor of Vermont and deputy secretary of education under President ClintonDo you support public education and the mission of the department?
Title IX and Title IV?
With her financial support of conservative candidates, can she be a
nonpartisan secretary?
Or, more bluntly, does she believe the department
should be eliminated?
What will she do to reduce high student loan debt?
Margaret Spellings, president, University of North Carolina System; former education secretary under President George W. Bush
As an education reformer, there is much Ms. DeVos can do to encourage
accountability and high standards, but achieving those goals will
depend on winning the support of stakeholders across the country. I
think she can build that support because her focus as a reformer is
squarely on students -- what works best for them, what gives them the
best shot at a quality education and the opportunity to excel.
Ann Larson, organizer, the Debt Collective
Most for-profit schools would not survive without federal student
aid. Do you believe that for-profit colleges should continue to receive
federal funding?
Student debt cancellation would immediately improve nearly 40 million
Americans’ lives and help the economy. Under what conditions would you
support a jubilee of student loans?
The Debt Collective organizes with many people of faith who are
united in their opposition to usury. As secretary of education, at what
point would you consider education debt to be usurious?
You have supported using public funds to create private religious
education. Would you support taxpayer-funded schools run by Muslims?
If
not, how would you decide which religious views can be supported with
taxpayer dollars?
Beth Akers, senior fellow, the Manhattan Institute
Since DeVos doesn’t have a real track record on higher education,
it’s going to be tough to get a true sense of what we can expect from
her down the road. But given her staunch support of choice in K-12
education, a notion based firmly in market-oriented thinking, I’d expect
her to be sympathetic to both eliminating gainful-employment
regulations and reintroducing private lenders into the federal student
loan program, both of which are bad ideas. I’d like to see the committee
press her on these issues, which would give us a good sense of whether
she’s done her homework on higher education.
Gail Mellow, president, LaGuardia Community College
If asked to define a typical college student, most Americans describe
a recent high school graduate, going to a four-year college and living
on the college campus. However, this represents only a portion of our
nation’s college students. Nearly half of all U.S. college students are
enrolled at a community college. And community college students are
disproportionately among the neediest disadvantaged groups -- living in
poverty, minorities, new immigrants. Paradoxically, community colleges
serve the most academically and financially challenged students in our
nation, while private research colleges receive five times more funding
per student.
Given this disparity, does Ms. DeVos think community colleges are in
danger of becoming separate and unequal institutions of higher
education? How would she address the relative lack of funding for
community colleges, as compared with other sectors of higher education?
Rohit Chopra, former student loans ombudsman, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
As secretary, you’ll be the CEO of a trillion-dollar student loan
bank that impacts more than 40 million borrowers, with more assets than
Goldman Sachs. Oddly, the bank hands out contracts to big student loan
companies to collect from borrowers, while also policing them to make
sure borrowers aren’t getting cheated. Do you think it is realistic that
the nation’s top education official can have the expertise to play this
role effectively? Or should these roles be transferred to other
agencies, like the Department of the Treasury, the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission? In other words, is
it time to break up the trillion-dollar bank?
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor, California Community Colleges
During the presidential election, large numbers of voters made it
known that they were not connected to the economy and feel they are
losing ground in the era of globalization. America’s community colleges
are the most powerful engines of social mobility in our nation,
providing people from all backgrounds with the ability to prepare for
meaningful and good-paying jobs. How can this administration and your
department empower community colleges to do even more to prepare
students for the jobs of today and tomorrow?
The California Community Colleges are the largest system of higher
education in the country, and tens of thousands of our 2.1 million
students participate in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. What
will you and the Department of Education do to ensure that these
students, some of whom have served our nation in the armed forces, will
continue to pursue their educational goals and contribute to the
communities in which they were raised?
President-elect Trump has made clear that he wants America to embark
on projects that modernize our aging infrastructure, which will create
job opportunities for a broad spectrum of skilled workers. Under your
leadership, how will the department work with America’s community
colleges to invest in the types of career technical education programs
that will align with the infrastructure plans envisioned by the
administration? The success of such a large-scale public infrastructure
program will depend, in large part, on the ability of employers and
colleges to achieve labor supply and demand equilibrium, which will
require close coordination and support by the Departments of Education
and Labor.
Throughout the nation, College Promise partnerships have brought
communities, businesses, philanthropic organizations and education
partners together to promote college-going cultures and make community
college more affordable. From Tennessee to Long Beach, Calif., these
partnerships have enabled communities to make powerful commitments to
students and families who want to use public higher education as a way
to improve their lives. What will the incoming administration do to
continue the proliferation of these partnerships that are showing
positive results?
Wick Sloane, instructor at Bunker Hill Community College and Inside Higher Ed contributor
What will you do to equalize need-based federal subsidies for college
students?
Federal subsidies to college students vary wildly. A federal
Pell Grant for the lowest of the low-income students is a maximum of
$5,775. All students at wealthy colleges such as Williams, Yale,
Princeton and Harvard, by federal tax policy alone, receive subsidies of
at least $30,000 per student, regardless of need. This is from tax-free
endowments and tax-deductible donations that colleges are free to spend
for sports sky boxes and indoor golf nets. How will you work with the
Treasury and the IRS to remedy these inequities?
How quickly will you put in place a federal free and reduced-price
lunch program for eligible low-income college students? If not, will you
support Senator Warren’s proposal for an immediate General
Accountability Office study on college hunger? As you know, the
available data on hunger is alarming. Federal policy agrees that
nutrition is essential for learning in K-12, and the federal government
provides eligible students with free and reduced-price lunch and often
breakfast. Yet these same students lose these meals when they continue
on to higher education for a professional credential or a degree. The
same students often lose a bus or a subway pass. Does this make sense to
you?
