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Volume 3, No. 88, July 2, 2025 |
Reconciliation Bill Moves Forward in the Senate
In an effort to complete action on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, H.R. 1
(OBBB) by the self-imposed
deadline of July 4, the U.S. Senate pulled an all-nighter and weekend session.
Changes have been made to the 940-page OBBB text since June 27 to comply with Senate
rules that will allow the bill to be considered under expedited procedures that
avoid a Senate filibuster, thus requiring only a majority vote.
Note that the
information provided in this article is based on the text ADEA obtained as of
Saturday morning, June 28, and the explanation provided by the authors.
It is
possible that additional changes could occur in order to further comply with those
requirements before the bill’s final passage in the Senate.
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Higher Education
In higher education, the bill would,
after July 1, 2026, eliminate Grad PLUS loans.
In earlier versions of this provision,
students with Grad PLUS loans as of that date would remain eligible for up to
three years to complete their course of study.
That phrasing is not included in
the June 28 summary, so it is unclear if the language remains.
The bill also caps
unsubsidized borrowing at $20,500 per year ($100,000 lifetime) and professional
(e.g., dental, law, medicine) borrowing at $50,000 per year ($200,000 lifetime);
graduate limits are in addition to undergraduate limits.
For loan repayment, starting July
1, loans can be repaid using only two plans—a new standard plan and a new income-driven
repayment (IDR) plan. Existing plans, such as the Saving on a Valuable Education
(SAVE), Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), graduated, extended, alternative, are eliminated.
In the bill:
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Under the new standard plan, borrowers
make fixed payments for 10-25 years based on the amount borrowed.
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A new IDR plan, the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), is
established whereby payments are 1% to 10% of income depending on income level,
with a minimum monthly payment of $10. Payments are reduced by $50 per dependent.
Borrowers who make on-time payments always see their balance go down, as unpaid
interest is waived and there is a principal match of up to $50; any remaining
balance is forgiven after 30 years.
Medicaid
For Medicaid, the status is a
little murkier in the bill. Provisions we understood to have been dropped because
they violated the rules for expedited consideration in the Senate had remained
in the Saturday version. These provisions could be removed during debate on the
bill itself if a point of order is raised against them. One additional provision
that has been added would create a Rural Health Transformation Program to provide
$25 billion over five years, beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2028, to mitigate the
effect of cuts to the Medicaid program on hospitals, rural health clinics, federally
qualified health clinics, community health clinics and drug treatment and behavioral
and mental health clinics. However, the underlying effect of Medicaid program
reductions reported on previously in the ADEA Advocate remain. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that
these changes to the program would cause 11.8 million people to lose their health insurance coverage.
Outlook
The Senate began 20 hours of debate
at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 29, with at least 86 amendments filed to be considered.
On July 1, the Senate passed the OBBB Act by a 51–50 vote, with Vice President
JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
The Congressional majority hopes
to have the House of Representatives vote on the Senate-passed version on July
2. If it passes the House without change, that will clear the OBBB Act for the
president, who intends to sign it before July 4.
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Scheduling of In-person Interviews for International Students Resumes
On June 18, the U.S. Department of State issued an update on its pause in scheduling
in-person interviews for international students seeking F, M or J visas. In short,
based on a leaked cable
from Secretary Marco Rubio, the Department has begun scheduling such interviews,
and it is implementing an additional vetting of such students’ social media
history after the interviews and before granting visas. There is no indication
about how long this process might take.
According to the Cable Counselor, officers are looking for “potentially derogatory
information and indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government,
institutions, or founding principles of the United States; advocacy for, aid,
or support for designated foreign terrorists and other threats to U.S. national
security; or of support for unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence.”
Some additional information on the situation from NAFSA, the association for international
educators, can be found here.
This remains an evolving matter, and ADEA will continue to update you on the situation.
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Accreditation Bills Reported by House Committee
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Workforce did a
markup of two bills, last week in partial response to President Trump’s April
23 Executive Order, “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.”
Introduced on June 25 by U.S. Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), H.R. 4054, the Accreditation Choice and Innovation Act, creates
a “new marketplace for accreditation by giving states the flexibility to designate
industry-specific accreditors, providing an on-ramp for capable new accreditors,
and directing accreditors to focus on student outcomes to guide accreditors’ quality assurance reviews.”
H.R. 2516, the Accreditation for College Excellence (ACE) Act of 2025,
which was introduced by the Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee
Chair U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT), “prohibits accreditors from mandating
that institutions adopt DEI standards in order to receive accreditation.” The
legislation is intended to codify the Executive Order by prohibiting political
litmus tests during the college accreditation process to retain access to federal funding.
The next step is full House consideration of the legislation, the timing of which is unclear.
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Federal Judge Orders ED to Rehire Civil Rights Staff
A federal judge in Massachusetts has ruled
that the Department of Education (ED) must reinstate the Office for Civil Rights
(OCR) employees who were laid off following a major reduction in its labor force.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s ruling comes after the Department closed seven
of its 12 regional OCR offices—a move that eliminated approximately 208 investigator
positions, representing approximately 55% of OCR’s investigative staff.
The
court ruling mandates that ED restore OCR to its staffing and operational status as of Jan.
20, 2025.
Joun found that these layoffs severely limited OCR’s ability to fulfill its core
mission of enforcing federal civil rights laws in schools nationwide.
The closures
and staff reductions left OCR unable to conduct timely and thorough investigations
into complaints of discrimination based on race, sex, disability and other protected classes.
In his ruling, Joun found that the cuts left OCR “incapable of addressing the
vast majority of OCR complaints” and had already led to “a substantial backlog
of unresolved cases.” He noted that the layoffs caused widespread disruption:
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Investigations were halted.
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Communication with complainants was limited.
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Critical enforcement
mechanisms—including document requests, interviews and resolution agreements—were effectively frozen.
In a related May 22 ruling, Joun issued a separate injunction blocking broader
ED layoffs affecting nearly 1,400 employees across multiple divisions.
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