Higher Ed Policy Roundup: Vol. 8 - Issue 21

On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its budget projections, predicting a $2 trillion federal deficit for fiscal year 2024. According to the budget report titled "An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2024 to 2034," of the four factors contributing to the increase, nearly $145 billion comes from the Biden-Harris Administration’s changes to the student loan program, making it the number one contributor of the increase. The $2 trillion figure is up from CBO’s projections earlier this year that estimated a federal deficit of $1.6 trillion.

In a recent poll from Bankrate, almost one in five respondents said student loan debt will influence their vote in the November election.

The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity proposes creating a “quality assurance” system to prevent students from borrowing federal Direct Loans for programs that do not produce adequate labor market returns.

The following bill(s) have been recently introduced for consideration by the 118th Congress (2023-2024):

H.R. 8759 – Public Service Loan Forgiveness Inclusion Act [Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL-11)] would expand the types of repayment plans eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.