Additional K–12 Reforms

Allowing States to Opt Out of Federal Education Programs. States should be able to opt out of federal education programs such as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act. Much of the red tape and regulations that hinder local school districts are handed down from Washington. This regulatory burden far exceeds the federal government’s less than 10 percent financing share of K–12 education. In the most recent fiscal year (FY 2022), states and localities financed 93 percent of K–12 education costs, and the federal government just 7 percent. That 7 percent share should not allow the federal government to dictate state and local education policy.

HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM

HEA: Accreditation Reform

Congress established two primary responsibilities for the U.S. Department of Education in the HEA: 1) to ensure the “administrative capacity and financial responsibility” of colleges and universities that accept Title IV funds; and 2) to ensure the quality of those institutions. Congress did not endow the Department of Education with the authority to involve itself in academic quality issues relating to colleges and universities that participate in the Title IV student aid program; the HEA allows the agency only to recognize accreditors, which are then supposed to provide quality assurance measures.

Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has followed closely in the footsteps of the Obama Administration by engaging in a politically motivated and incon- sistent administration of the accrediting agency recognition process. As a result, accreditors have transformed into de facto government agents. Despite claims by

To restore state and local control of education and reduce the bureaucratic and compliance burden, Congress should allow states to opt out of the dozens of federal K–12 education programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and instead allow states to put their share of federal funding toward any lawful education purpose under state law. This policy has been advanced over the years via a proposal known as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act.

the department and accreditation agencies that accreditation is voluntary, the fact that Americans are denied access to an otherwise widely available entitle- ment benefit if the institution “elects” to not be accredited makes accreditation anything but voluntary. Today, accreditation determines whether Americans can access federal student aid benefits, transfer academic credits, enroll in higher-level degree programs, and even qualify for federal employment.

Unnecessarily focused on schools in a specific geographic region, institutional accreditation reviews have also become wildly expensive audits by academic “peers” that stifle innovation and discourage new institutions of higher education. Of par- ticular concern are efforts by many accreditation agencies to leverage their Title IV (student loans and grants) gatekeeper roles to force institutions to adopt policies that have nothing to do with academic quality assurance and student outcomes.

One egregious example of this is the extent to which accreditors have forced col- leges and universities, many of them faith-based institutions, to adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that conflict with federal civil rights laws, state laws, and the institutional mission and culture of the schools. Perhaps more distress- ingly, accreditors, while professing support for academic freedom and campus free speech, have presided over a precipitous decline in both over the past decade. Despite maintaining criteria that demand such policies, accreditors have done nothing to dampen the illiberal chill that has swept across American campuses over the past decade.

The current system is not working. A radical overhaul of the HEA’s accreditation requirements is thus in order. The next Administration should work with Congress to amend the HEA and should consider the following reforms:

Prohibit accreditation agencies from leveraging their Title IV gatekeeper role to mandate that educational institutions adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

Protect the sovereignty of states to decide governance and leadership issues for their state-supported colleges and universities by prohibiting accreditation agencies from intruding upon the governance of state-supported educational institutions. Protect faith-based institutions by prohibiting accreditation agencies from:

Requiring standards and criteria that undermine the religious beliefs of, or require policies or conduct that conflict with, the religious mission or religious beliefs of the institution; and — 352 —Department of Education 2. Intruding on the governance of colleges and universities controlled by a religious organization.

Revamp the system for recognizing accreditation agencies for Title IV purposes by removing the department’s monopoly on recognition by (1) authorizing states to recognize accreditation agencies for Title IV gatekeeping purposes and/or (2) authorizing state agencies to act as accreditation agencies for institutions throughout the United States.

HEA: Student Loans l Beyond immediate policy moves and rulemaking to end the current Administration’s abuse of the department’s payment pause and HEA loan forgiveness programs, the department should work with Congress to overhaul the federal student loan program for the benefit of taxpayers and students.

The federal government does not have the proper incentives to make sound lending decisions. The new Administration should consider:

Privatizing all lending programs, including subsidized, unsubsidized, and PLUS loans (both Grad and Parent). This would allow for market prices and signals to influence educational borrowing, introducing consumer-driven accountability into higher education. Pell grants should retain their current voucher-like structure.

The next Administration and Congress might also consider amending the HEA to remove accreditors from the program triad entirely to allow accreditation to return to its original role of voluntary quality assurance. This would permit accreditors to put some “teeth” back into their standards without creating high- stakes disasters, such as institutional loss of Title IV access through paperwork submission errors, a state exercising its constitutional authority to administer its public colleges and universities, or an institution freely exercising the religious beliefs of its founders. With this option, neither the department nor the states would oversee or recognize accrediting agencies. The department’s role would be limited to evaluating the institution’s compliance with federal accounting requirements pursuant to evaluations conducted by appropriately credentialed auditors who have no conflicts of interest in performing the review paid for by the federal agency charged with overseeing compliance—not the institutions being reviewed.

If privatizing student lending is not feasible, then the next Administration should consider the following reforms:

Switch to fair-value accounting from FCRA accounting. Consolidate all federal loan programs into one new program that a) utilizes income-driven repayment, b) includes no interest rate subsidies or loan forgiveness, c) includes annual and aggregate limits on borrowing, and d) includes skin in the game to hold colleges accountable.

Eliminate Grad PLUS loans (for graduate students) and Parent PLUS loans (for parents of undergraduates). Graduate students are already eligible for unsubsidized Stafford student loans; Grad PLUS loans are redundant. They also lack some of the safeguards of Stafford loans, such as annual and aggregate borrowing limits. Parent PLUS loans are also redundant because there are many privately provided alternatives available.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which prioritizes government and public sector work over private sector employment, should be terminated.

Whatever Congress chooses to do with future loans, there is still the question of the government’s responsible stewardship of the existing student loan portfolio—a substantial taxpayer asset. The current Administration has recklessly engaged in the policy fetish of forgiving and canceling student loans with abandon.

The next Administration should work with Congress to amend the HEA to ensure that no Administration engages in this kind of abuse in the future.

Specifically, the new Administration should urge the Congress to amend the HEA to abrogate, or substantially reduce, the power of the Secretary to cancel, compromise, discharge, or forgive the principal balances of Title IV student loans, as well as to modify in any material way the repayment amounts or terms of Title IV student loans. Further, the next Administration should propose that Congress amend the HEA to remove the department’s authority to forgive loans based on borrower defense to repayment; instead, the department should be authorized to discharge loans only in instances where clear and convincing evidence exists to demonstrate that an educational institution engaged in fraud toward a borrower in connection with his or her enrollment in the institution and the student’s educational program or activity at the institution.

Cap indirect costs at universities. Currently, the federal government pays a por- tion of the overhead expenses associated with university-based research. Known as “indirect costs,” these reimbursements cross-subsidize leftist agendas and the research of billion-dollar organizations such as Google and the Ford Foundation. Universities also use this influx of cash to pay for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. To correct course,

Congress should cap the indirect cost rate paid to universities so that it does not exceed the lowest rate a university accepts from a private organization to fund research efforts. This market- based reform would help reduce federal taxpayer subsidization of leftist agendas.

NEW REGULATIONS

Attacking the Accreditation Cartel

For a college to participate in federal financial aid programs, it must be accred- ited, but accreditors have been abusing their quasi-regulatory power to impose non-educational requirements and ideological preferences on colleges.

The Secretary of Education should refuse to recognize all accreditors that abuse their power.

New accreditors should also be encouraged to start up. Confronting the Chinese Communist Party’s Influence on Higher Education According to media reports, more than 100 universities in the U.S. received nearly $100 billion in gifts and grants from China-based sources between 2013 and 2020. Much of this money derives from the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies. The next Administration must l Reverse the Biden Administration’s refusal to enforce Section 117 of the HEA, which directs colleges and universities to report gifts from, and contracts with, sources outside the U.S. worth $250,000 or more.

Investigate postsecondary institutions that fail to honor their Section 117 obligations and make appropriate referrals to DOJ. Work with Congress to amend the HEA to tie the HEA’s foreign source reporting requirements to an institution’s ability to receive federal financial assistance, particularly participation in programs funded under Titles IV and VI of the HEA. Allowing Competency-Based Education to Flourish

Competency-based education is a promising approach that could provide a high-quality and affordable education to many students. Since the credit hour, which measures the time in the classroom, is inappropriate for such programs, the direct assessment method was introduced to allow competen- cy-based programs to participate in the federal financial aid programs. However, overregulation has hampered the usage of direct assessment, with the lead- ing competency-based university choosing to instead convert their courses into credit hours for compliance purposes. One of the leading obstacles is the requirement that courses include “regular and substantive” interaction between faculty and students.

New regulations should clarify the definition and requirements of regular and substantive interaction for competency-based education, as well as for online programs.

Reforming “Area Studies” Funding

Congress should wind down so-called “area studies” programs at universities (Title VI of the HEA), which, although intended to serve American interests, sometimes fund programs that run counter to those interests.

In the meantime, the next Administration should promulgate a new regulation to require the Secretary of Education to allocate at least 40 percent of funding to international business programs that teach about free markets and economics and require institutions, faculty, and fellowship recipients to certify that they intend to further the stated statutory goals of serving American interests.

NEW EXECUTIVE ORDERS THAT THE PRESIDENT SHOULD ISSUE

Guidance Documents

The President should immediately reinstate and reissue Executive Order 13891: Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency Guidance Documents, 84 Fed. Reg. 55235 (Oct. 9, 2019), and Executive Order 13892: Promoting the Rule of Law Through Transparency and Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and Adjudication (Oct. 15, 2019).

These executive orders required all federal agencies to treat guidance documents as non-binding in law and practice and also forbade federal agencies from imposing new standards of conduct on persons outside the executive branch through guid- ance documents. They required all federal agencies to apply regulations and statutes instead of guidance documents in any enforcement action. President Biden revoked these executive orders on January 20, 2021, demonstrating that these executive orders effectively restrained the abuses of an expansive administrative state.

Protect the First Amendment. The President should issue an executive order requiring grant applications (SF-424 series) to contain assurances that the applicant will uphold the First Amendment in funded programs and work.

Minimize bachelor’s degree requirements. The President should issue an executive order stating that a college degree shall not be required for any federal job unless the requirements of the job specifically demand it. Eliminate the “list of shame.” Educational institutions can claim a religious exemption with the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education from the strictures of Title IX. In 2016, the Obama Administration published on the Department of Education’s website a list of colleges that had applied for the exemption. This “list of shame” of faith-based colleges, as it came to be known, has since been archived on ED’s website, still publicly available. The President should issue an executive order removing the archived list and preventing such a list from being published in the future.

Require APA notice and comment. The President should issue an executive order requiring the Office for Civil Rights’ Case Processing Manual to go through APA (Administrative Procedures Act) notice and comment.