Education Secretary Testifies on the Department’s Policies and Priorities During House Committee Hearing

On June 24, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on “Examining the Policies and Priorities of the U.S. Department of Education.” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona testified on behalf of the Department of Education to discuss and answer questions about the department’s goals and commitments to the education community through the elementary to postsecondary levels.

While the hearing included conversations on a broad range of issues related to education, outlined below are important topics discussed relevant to higher education.

Student Loans

Several Democrats on the committee asked Cardona about the department’s plans to handle issues related to student loans. Speaking directly on the current pause for student loan payments and interest, Reps. Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Haley Stevens (D-MI) both asked questions about any anticipated action that may extend the pause past the September 30 deadline. Cardona said that while the department does not currently have plans to release to the public, they are closely monitoring the situation and are hosting discussions with stakeholders, including borrowers, about what the next course of action should be with respect to the payment pause. He did not specify whether the next steps would be further extending the loan payment pause or finding efficient solutions to seamlessly resume the payments.

In addition to questions about the student loan payment pause, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) and others asked about the department’s plans for addressing issues related to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF) and other income-driven repayment plans. Cardona stated that such programs need complete overhauls to be better effective at serving the borrowers who use such programs, and that the department would be investigating ways to revamp such programs.

Foreign Contracts and Gifts Reporting Requirements

Many Republicans on the committee focused their questions on issues related to the contract and gift reporting requirements for institutions of higher education as mandated under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asked Cardona how the department plans to hold colleges accountable for reporting such required information to ensure countries like China and Russia, who they referred to as adversarial nations, do not hold extensive influence over American postsecondary education. Cardona acknowledged proposals that Congress has recently considered to amend Section 117 reporting requirements, such as United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (S. 1260) that recently passed the Senate, and stated that the department would work with Congress to implement new policies affecting Section 117 reporting once they became law.

Title IX Protections

Rep. Frank Mrvan (D-IN) asked Cardona what the department was doing to address the Trump administration’s 2020 Title IX rule, which he believed weakened protections for survivors of sexual misconduct on campuses. Cardona briefly explained that the department is exploring a new rulemaking process and that they held a public hearing earlier in June, all of which had been previously announced by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights.