[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HIGHER EDUCATION ACT: INSTITUTIONAL
SUPPORT FOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
UNDER TITLE III AND TITLE V
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION,
LIFELONG LEARNING, AND COMPETITIVENESS
COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN AUSTIN, TX, JUNE 4, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-43
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
Available on the Internet:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/education/index.html
______
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,
Chairman California,
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Ranking Minority Member
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Lynn C. Woolsey, California Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Carolyn McCarthy, New York Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Judy Biggert, Illinois
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
David Wu, Oregon Ric Keller, Florida
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Susan A. Davis, California John Kline, Minnesota
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Kenny Marchant, Texas
Timothy H. Bishop, New York Tom Price, Georgia
Linda T. Sanchez, California Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Charles W. Boustany, Jr.,
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Louisiana
David Loebsack, Iowa Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania York
John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky Rob Bishop, Utah
Phil Hare, Illinois David Davis, Tennessee
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Timothy Walberg, Michigan
Joe Courtney, Connecticut Dean Heller, Nevada
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director
Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION,
LIFELONG LEARNING, AND COMPETITIVENESS
RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas, Chairman
George Miller, California Ric Keller, Florida,
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Ranking Minority Member
David Wu, Oregon Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Timothy H. Bishop, New York Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., New
Joe Courtney, Connecticut York
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Timothy Walberg, Michigan
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Susan A. Davis, California Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Judy Biggert, Illinois
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 4, 2007..................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Hinojosa, Hon. Ruben, Chairman, Subcommittee on Higher
Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness.......... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Additional materials submitted:
Bassham, Kathy, president, Texas Association of
Student Financial Aid Administrators (TASFAA)...... 49
McMillin, Sue, president and CEO, Texas Guaranteed
Student Loan Corporation (TG)...................... 46
Statement of Witnesses:
Earvin, Dr. Larry, president, Huston-Tillotson University.... 22
Prepared statement of.................................... 24
Kinslow, Dr. Stephen B., president/CEO of Austin Community
College District........................................... 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Paredes, Dr. Ray, commissioner, Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board......................................... 50
Scott, George A., Director, Education, Workforce and Income
Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office..... 13
Prepared statement of.................................... 15
Vanegas-Funcheon, Olivia, president, Tohono O'odham Community
College.................................................... 30
Prepared statement of.................................... 31
Additional material submitted:
Prepared statement of the American Indian Higher
Education Consortium (AIHEC)....................... 34
Tohono O'odham Community College press release....... 36
Tohono O'odham Community College grants table........ 37
HIGHER EDUCATION ACT: INSTITUTIONAL
SUPPORT FOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
UNDER TITLE III AND TITLE V
----------
Monday, June 4, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Higher Education,
Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness
Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Multipurpose Hall, Library Sciences Building, Building 9000,
Austin Community College, 3401 Webberville Road, Austin, Texas,
Hon. Ruben Hinojosa [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representative Hinojosa.
Also Present: Representative Grijalva.
Staff Present: Ricardo Martinez, Policy Advisor for
Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and
Competitiveness; and Ana Ma, Senior Counsel to Representative
Grijalva.
Chairman Hinojosa. A quorum is present. The hearing of the
subcommittee will come to order.
Pursuant to committee Rule 12, any member may submit an
opening statement in writing, which will be made part of the
permanent record. Without objection, all members will have 14
days to submit additional materials or any questions for the
hearing record.
Before going into the rules that we are going to use this
morning for this Congressional field hearing, I want to
exercise point of privilege, that it is a great feeling to come
back to Austin, my alma mater, and to be able to see so many
friends with whom I came to school with and worked with the 10
years that I served on the Texas State Board of Education.
One in particular is the former Mayor Gustavo Garcia. Gus
and I go back to 1972 when both of us were both elected to the
local School Board, he in Austin and I in Mercedes. And we
attended an orientation program that very first year, and we
wanted to know a little bit more about bilingual education,
which was a new legislative mandate here in Congress--in
Austin. Forgive me for saying ``Congress,'' but the Texas
legislature.
And so we were introduced and were invited to each lunch
with a group of leaders from--state leaders, and we found out
that we had very similar concerns about public education and
interest in trying to do something about it, to try to make a
measurable difference.
And so we became friends as advocates for education for the
last more than three decades, and it is a pleasure, Mayor
Garcia, to see you visiting us this morning, and to be able to
see the continuing interest that you have in education. I can
tell you that I have spoken to a lot of leaders from this area,
and they speak very highly of you, of your continuing
involvement in the community, not only in education but all of
the issues important to this area, the economy, and I know that
as a CPA you certainly know how that works.
But also, in health care and immigration and all of the
issues that are being discussed in Washington, and to hear that
you are so well informed makes me feel--continue to feel very
proud to say that I am a friend of Mayor Gus Garcia. Please
give him a big round of applause. [Applause.]
For those of you who have not testified before this
subcommittee, let me explain our lighting system and the five-
minute rule. Everyone, including members, is limited to five
minutes of presentation or questioning. The green light is
illuminated when you begin to speak. When you see the yellow
light, it means you have one minute remaining. When you see the
red light, it means your time has expired and you need to
conclude your testimony.
Please be certain as you testify to turn on and speak into
the microphones in front of you, so that all of the statements
can be recorded for the permanent record.
We will now hear a few of the questions--not questions
necessarily, but statements that are going to be--that will be
given and the introductions I will follow--will follow
introductions of the witnesses.
Good morning, and welcome to the Subcommittee on Higher
Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness hearing on
the Higher Education Act and institutional support for colleges
and universities under Title III and Title V.
I would like to thank our hosts at Austin Community
College. President Kinslow, and the Austin Community College
staff, and Board of Directors, and the community have shown us
tremendous hospitality. It is a privilege to hold this
important Congressional hearing on your campus.
I would like to also thank my good friend and colleague
Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona for joining us in Austin
today. A member of the full Education and Labor Committee,
Congressman Grijalva is a guest member of our subcommittee
today. It is a measure of his genuine commitment to access to
higher education for low income and minority students that he
has traveled to Texas to participate in this public hearing.
Thank you, Congressman Grijalva.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ruben Hinojosa, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness
Good Morning. Welcome to the Subcommittee on Higher Education,
Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness hearing on the Higher Education
Act and Institutional Support for Colleges and Universities under Title
III and Title V.
I would like to thank our hosts at Austin Community College.
President Kinslow and the Austin Community College staff and community
have shown us tremendous hospitality. It is a privilege to hold this
hearing on your campus.
I would like to also thank my good friend and colleague Congressman
Ra#l Grijalva of Arizona for joining us in Austin today. A member of
the full Education and Labor Committee, Congressman Grijalva is a guest
member of our subcommittee today. It is a measure of his commitment to
access to higher education for low-income and minority students that he
has traveled to Texas to participate in this hearing. Thank you,
Congressman Grijalva.
Today's hearing is our fifth subcommittee hearing in preparation
for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. We have looked at
the scale of the challenge to produce the college graduates our economy
needs to remain globally competitive. We have considered how well we
are preparing our next generation of college students. We have
discussed how low and middle-income families finance college and the
critical role of student financial aid. We have focused on teacher
preparation and the vital role that our institutions of higher
education play in equipping our teachers to deliver high quality
instruction to all of our students--especially those in high need
public schools. Today, we will discuss how the Higher Education Act
supports the key institutions that are the gateways of access to higher
education for low-income and minority students.
Title III and Title V of the Higher Education Act provide grants
for institutional development and capacity building for colleges and
universities that serve high populations of low income and minority
students with low resources compared to other institutions. These
titles include specific programs for Tribally-controlled colleges and
universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Native
Alaskan and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Hispanic-Serving
Institutions.
For an annual federal investment of a little over $500 million, we
provide support to over 670 institutions. These are the colleges and
universities that award 30 percent of the bachelors' degrees earned by
African American students and enroll 47 percent of Hispanic students.
They are engines of economic development for their communities.
These institutions are only going to grow in their importance for
ensuring that our nation continues to have enough college graduates to
fill the jobs in our knowledge-based economy. The 2007 Condition of
Education reports that 42 percent of our public school children are
racial or ethnic minorities--one in five is Hispanic.
These students face many challenges: 70 percent of black 4th
graders, 73 percent of Hispanic 4th graders, and 65 percent of Native
American fourth graders are eligible for free and reduced priced
lunches. These students are also concentrated in our highest poverty
public schools where over 75 percent of the students are from low-
income families.
These schools are the focus of the No Child Left Behind Act. They
are the feeder schools to our Title III and Title V institutions.
During the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, we have the
opportunity to further strengthen and expand the capacity of the
institutions that will be increasingly called upon to prepare our next
generation of teachers, scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and
other professionals.
For HSIs, we will continue to focus on enacting the provisions of
H.R. 451, the Next Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act, to
create a graduate program at Hispanic--Serving Institutions. This has
been a long-standing priority for me and other members of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus. We also stand in solidarity with our
colleagues to support efforts to strengthen all of the developing
institutions programs.
I would like to thank you witnesses for joining us today. We are
eager to here your recommendations on how we can improve and expand
programs for Title III and Title V institutions.
Thank you and I now recognize my good friend and colleague Ra#l
Grijalva for opening remarks.
______
Mr. Grijalva. You are welcome, sir.
Chairman Hinojosa. Today's hearing is our fifth
subcommittee hearing in preparation for the reauthorization of
Higher Education Act, which takes place every six years.
Unfortunately, the 108th and the 109th Congress were unable to
finish it and get it into public law for many reasons.
But it is the 110th Congress, of which I happen to be the
Chairman of Higher Education, that has the opportunity to try
to get it done, and, if so, I believe will make some important
amendments to the Education Code and make changes that will
improve the two big umbrellas of accessibility and
affordability of higher education.
We have looked at the scale of the challenge to produce the
college graduates our economy needs to remain globally
competitive. We have considered how well we are preparing our
next generation of college students. We have discussed how low
and middle income families finance college and critical role of
student financial aid.
We have focused on teacher preparation and the vital role
that our institutions of higher education play in equipping our
teachers to deliver high quality instruction to all of our
students, especially those in high-need public schools.
Today, we will discuss how the Higher Education Act
supports the key institutions that are the gateways of access
to higher education for low income and minority students. Title
III and Title V of the Higher Education Act provide grants for
institutional development and capacity building for colleges
and universities that serve high populations of low income and
minority students with low resources compared to other
institutions.
These titles in the Education Code include specific
programs for tribally controlled colleges and universities, for
historically black colleges and universities, for Native
Alaskan and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions, and for
Hispanic-serving institutions.
For an annual federal investment of a little over $500
million, we provide support to approximately 670 institutions.
I repeat that. Approximately $500 million are available, and
the President hopes that your college system will be approved
and designated as an HSI by the fall of 2007.
These are the colleges and universities that award 30
percent of the bachelor's degrees and associate degrees earned
by African-American students and enroll 47 percent of Hispanic
students. They are the engines of economic development for
their communities.
These institutions are only going to grow in their
importance for ensuring that our nation continues to have
enough college graduates to fill the jobs of our knowledge-
based economy. The 2007 Condition of Education Report said 42
percent of our public school children are racial or ethnic
minorities. One in five is Hispanic. These students face many,
many challenges.
Seventy percent of black fourth graders, and 73 percent of
Hispanic fourth graders, and 65 percent of Native American
fourth graders are eligible for free and reduced price lunches.
These students are also concentrated in our highest poverty
public schools where over 75 percent of the students are from
low income families. These schools are the focus of the No
Child Left Behind Act. They are the feeder schools to our Title
III and Title V institutions.
During the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, we
have the opportunity to further strengthen and expand the
capacity of these institutions that will be increasingly called
upon to prepare our next generation of teachers, scientists,
engineers, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. For HSIs,
we will continue to focus on enacting the provisions of H.R.
451 entitled ``The Next Generation Hispanic-Serving
Institutions Act'' to create a graduate program at Hispanic-
serving institutions.
This has been a long-standing priority for me, and other
members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. We also stand in
solidarity with our Congressional colleagues to support efforts
to strengthen all of the developing institutions programs.
I would like to thank you, the witnesses who are seated
before us. We thank you for joining us today. We are eager to
hear your recommendations on how we can improve and expand
programs for Title III and Title V institutions.
Thank you. And I now recognize my good friend and colleague
Raul Grijalva for his opening remarks.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate very
much the opportunity and the invitation to join with you at
this hearing and look forward to the witnesses' perspectives on
these very important Title III/Title V discussions that we are
going to have in this reauthorization for higher ed.
Your experience and your perspectives are vital, and we are
talking about historical commitments and historical presence. I
think that is an important discussion as we move forward, and,
as the Chairman said, to add capacity and resources to that
effort. We are talking about an emerging college in a native
land, in Indian country. That is a new experience but a very
vital and necessary experience.
And we are talking about a large, system-wide institution
that is at the doorstep of making a commitment in the future to
serving with greater capacity the diversity of this community.
And so those are good perspectives, and I am looking forward to
it.
Let me just say that there is a lot of--people can go back
and forth on this issue of what do we do about the future, but
the future is tied to how we preparation a generation to come.
And in that preparation, I think everybody has gotten to the
point where you need to, if not out of an acceptance of fact in
science, and out of an acceptance of necessity, is that the
face of America is changing.
And with that demographic change comes an additional
responsibility to prepare that young, upcoming generation of
people, be they poor, be they middle class, be they of color.
And the emphasis of these two titles is exactly that--to
provide access and to deal with the hard questions of
affordability.
I am glad to join with you. I want to reiterate what the
Chairman said. We have a great opportunity this year. You know,
the Chairman gave me more credit than I deserve about taking
the trip from Tucson to here. The Chairman has a really subtle
way of saying, ``Raul, we are going to be talking about Title
III and Title V. I know how much you care about that. We will
be having a hearing on this date, and I sure wish you could
make it.'' Well, after that, what do you say? [Laughter.]
And, no, I sincerely wanted to be here. But it is about
increasing capacity, it is about resources, and it is about the
future. And this reauthorization under the leadership of our
Chairman, which couldn't come at a better time and a better
person in charge because of perspective and the understanding
that this is not a cookie cutter anymore, this is about
integrating. And I am happy for that.
So I don't have the connections the Chairman has to Austin,
and I was telling someone all I know is that sometime in
college I lost about four and a half days here. [Laughter.]
So thank you very much. [Laughter.]
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you, Congressman Grijalva. I want
to say that this is a small world, because I served on the
Texas State Board of Education for 10 years, from '74 to '84,
and would come once a month for four, maybe five days, and
Gustavo, our Mayor, former Mayor, invited me to meet someone
whom he said could teach us both a great deal about public
education, since we were both were working for that, but also
to introduce us to higher education and the needs--Dr. Alfredo
De La Santos, who was then Vice Chancellor of Maricopa County
Community College, and that, of course, happens to be in
Congressman Grijalva's area of Arizona.
And so we became best of friends, Dr. Alfredo and Mayor Gus
and myself for all these three decades. And Alfredo took me to
visit what Newsweek called the ``Best Community College System
in the Country--Maricopa County Community College System.'' And
that was when it was only a dream to create a community college
down in the Rio Grande Valley where unemployment had been
double digit rate for three decades.
And so Alfredo made it possible for a visitation team to
come visit in Phoenix, Arizona, and that is where I removed my
blinders to see the potential in community colleges and how
they could give us a trained workforce that would attract
businesses, and thus try to reduce that double digit
unemployment rate in South Texas.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I was saying to the witnesses
before we started that when you combine a community college and
a university, or several of them, with corporate America, it is
unbelievable what can be done. And if you have the input of the
community to support it, and to tax themselves so that there
will be community college money raised through taxes, plus the
city and the state and the federal government.
It can do what I have witnessed these 10 years, and that is
to see South Texas explode in population to 1-1/4 million
people when you combine the four counties, and to see the
unemployment rate drop in just eight years to 6 percent.
So what we are doing today is something that is very
important to the whole country, and the models that are done in
Austin and throughout the country, including South Texas, are
those models that are being taken to Mississippi and other
regions of the country that need a great deal of help.
It is my pleasure now to introduce the witnesses who will
speak today, and I will introduce all of them and then start
with the first one to give their presentation. Dr. Stephen W.
Kinslow, our host today, is also the President of Austin
Community College. He previously served ACC in various
administrative posts before being appointed President in 2005.
Prior to ACC, he worked for the Dallas Community College
District and also was a public school teacher in Big Spring,
Texas. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Texas in
Austin, as well as a master's degree from Southern Methodist
University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas
at Arlington.
The second witness will be Mr. George Scott. He is the
Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues at
the General Accounting Office in Washington, D.C. He has over
19 years of public service and is a familiar witness in our
subcommittee. His assignments include many issues within the
jurisdiction of the Committee on Education and Labor.
The GAO is located in Washington, D.C., and I welcome you
to this field hearing to my home State.
The third presenter will be Dr. Larry Earvin. He is
President of Huston-Tillotson University here in Austin. He has
served as President for seven years, and prior to that he held
various faculty and administrative positions at Clark Atlanta
University in Georgia. He has a Ph.D. from Emory University, a
master's of science from Georgia State University, and he
earned a bachelor's degree from Clark College.
Thank you for coming today.
Let me let Mr. Grijalva introduce the final witness.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is my
pleasure to introduce Ms. Olivia Vanegas-Funcheon, President
and CEO of the Tohono O'odham Community College, that nation's
first institution of higher learning.
The college was--correct me if I am wrong--1998 was the
inception of the college. Our witness has been with the college
since 2000, and in 2005 assumed the Presidency and CEO of that
college--a great fit for this community college that is
emerging and growing as we speak, great background working from
some of the major corporations in this country, in the private
sector.
A bachelor's degree from Arizona State University, MBA,
specialized coursework at Stanford and Harvard, and I think
what is really important is an awesome person to have the
connection, the cultural, spiritual, linguistic, and community
connections that are so vital to the development of this
community college on the reservation.
And I am proud to call her a friend, and proud of the
achievements that the nation and the college have been going
through the last few years. Congratulations.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I turn it back.
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you, Congressman Grijalva.
Now we will go into the testimony, and I ask Dr. Kinslow to
please start.
STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN W. KINSLOW, PRESIDENT, AUSTIN
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Mr. Kinslow. Thank you, Chairman Hinojosa, and Congressman
Grijalva, and also distinguished guests and friends of Austin
Community College.
As President of the Austin Community College District, or
ACC, it is my pleasure to speak with you today regarding the
critical role that community colleges play in educating the
nation's traditionally underserved populations, especially
minority, low income, and first generation college students.
ACC has been serving Central Texas since the early 1970s,
and much has changed about community colleges and the
recognition that they now receive. First, is that community
colleges, as the Chairman mentioned, are perceived and
recognized now as the gateway to higher education for over half
of all high school graduates and over half of all adults who
choose to enter higher education.
We are the primary provider of university transfer students
to the nation's four-year colleges and universities. We are the
primary trainer and retrainer of the local workforce.
Many people do not also understand that we are accredited
by the same agencies that govern the standards for four-year
colleges and universities, and we produce a high quality
student from our institutions. We embrace an open door policy,
which means in essence no one who can benefit from higher
education and training is turned away from our doors. Instead,
we offer multiple avenues for students to obtain the skill
levels necessary to be successful in achieving their goals.
Community colleges, however, are also challenged, partly
from the broad mission to serve all, partly from the fact that
we have different funding mechanisms than four-year colleges
and universities, and especially because of the enormous
diversity of students that the open door admissions philosophy
brings to our institutions.
At ACC, our students range in age right now from 17 to 70.
They bring great diversity in their college readiness skills.
And, most importantly, they increasingly come from
traditionally underserved populations.
ACC's mission is to meet the needs of the diverse and
rapidly changing demographics of our society through provision
of general education and core curriculum for transfer-bound
students through workforce training in high demand careers such
as health care, through access of developmental programs to
assist those who are not yet college ready, and to provide
adult education for a growing segment of the adult population,
and also to foster and sustain extensive community and
independent school district outreach programs which help to
create a college-going culture and a college-going expectation
among our society.
According to the U.S. Census, Texas is a majority minority
State, with Hispanics representing the fastest-growing segment
of the population. To illustrate that, from 1990 to 2005, the
Hispanic population in Texas nearly doubled and is currently at
7.9 million. In Central Texas, those numbers are just as
telling. Hispanics make up nearly 60 percent of the regional
local school districts in our eight-county service area.
While we are fortunate to have a very diverse student
population, we are also keenly aware that the fastest growing
demographic groups are those with traditionally lower high
school graduation rates and lower participation rates in higher
education. If we don't change those two realities and close the
gap, simply put, our State is headed for a crisis.
Texas risks not having enough educated, highly skilled
workers to meet the needs of business and industry. Providing
access to affordable higher education is the solution to those
challenges. Increasing access and affordability to higher
education will increase the number of college graduates and
trained workers in our region and across this country.
That will lead to an expansion of business and industry,
which leads to better jobs, which leads to higher wages that
people earn, which leads to higher consumer spending, which
benefits business and industry in local areas. And, most
importantly, it leads to a more equitable distribution to local
tax bases and to decreased needs for social services. Education
is the power that changes lives and changes communities.
Texas is addressing its challenges through an initiative
referred to as ``closing the gaps,'' the goal being to enroll
over 630,000 additional students into higher education by 2015.
For ACC as that primary gateway to higher education, that means
our institution will grow to over 40,000 students by 2015, and
by 2020 we look forward to being larger than UT-Austin.
[Laughter.]
To illustrate some our success in closing the gaps, I will
share with you that from fall 2001 to fall 2006, our college
enrollment increased over 14 percent. And of that large
increase in enrollment, 31 percent represented an increase in
Hispanic students.
It is most dramatic, however, to focus on the last two fall
semesters at our institution where our Hispanic enrollment has
grown 17-1/2 percent, and our African-American enrollment has
grown 16-1/2 percent.
Chairman Hinojosa. Mr. President, I am going to yield an
extra two minutes for you to try to bring----
Mr. Kinslow. Thank you.
Chairman Hinojosa [continuing]. Closure to your statement.
Mr. Kinslow. Thank you.
Chairman Hinojosa. But know that the entire statement will
be made a part of the record.
Mr. Kinslow. Thank you. I appreciate that. I will share
very briefly a successful program that has helped us achieve
those increases in Hispanic and African-American enrollments.
It is called the College Connection Program in which we export
to now 22 school districts within the eight-county region all
of the admissions and financial aid and college and career
exploration activities from our campuses to high school
campuses.
Students graduate with their high school diploma, cross the
stage, get their diploma, and an acceptance letter to ACC, and
are electronically already in our system. They can go to their
phone or web to enroll immediately. Many of those graduates
also exit having already earned early college start dual credit
through our institution.
We think that those programs are examples of things that
can be ramped up when we achieve our HSI status. We want to
take that program and many of our summer youth and bridge
programs and dramatically increase, as you were alluding to,
the capacity to touch more lives with the assistance of Title V
funding.
With that, I wanted to acknowledge one student who is in
the audience this morning, Ehrma Apolinar, who is one of our
GED students. She arrived a little bit late, because she was
taking a test this morning, but she is an example of the
changing face of America. Born in Mexico, one of 11 children,
at 15 she married and had a child, later dropped out of school
to help support her family. Sixteen years later she entered
ACC.
She is a recent graduate of our GED program. She is
attending college credit classes now with the Texas Association
of Chicanos and Higher Education Scholarship and plans to
attend a four-year college when she completes her studies here.
There are thousands of examples of student success stories
such as Ehrma, not only at ACC but at community colleges across
the State of Texas and across the nation. So we appreciate the
opportunity to speak to you this morning. We are highly honored
to be able to host this Congressional hearing. Thank you very
much. [Applause.]
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kinslow follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Stephen B. Kinslow, President/CEO of Austin
Community College District
Chairman Hinojosa and distinguished members of the Subcommittee:
Good morning.
As president of the Austin Community College District, or ACC, it
is my pleasure to speak with you today regarding the critical role
community colleges play in educating the nation's traditionally
underserved populations, especially minority, low income, and first
generation college students.
ACC is on the verge of becoming eligible for Hispanic-Service
Institution status and as you will see, the funding provided under
Title V is desperately needed.
ACC has been serving Central Texas since 1973. Since then a lot has
changed. Community colleges are now the primary gateway to higher
education and training for more than 50 percent of all who enter
college, whether they are recent high school graduates or adults.
Community colleges are also the primary provider of transfer students
to four-year colleges and universities.
As the members of this committee are keenly aware the United States
is competing in a global market, demand for highly skilled workers is
on the rise, and our nation's future economic development is more
dependent than ever on community colleges.
While community colleges meet the same accreditation standards as
four-year colleges and universities, they are different. There is an
``open door'' policy. Rather than turn away people who may not have the
prerequisites for college level work, the community college offers
avenues for students to obtain the necessary skill levels. Community
colleges are challenged by a broad mission, different funding
mechanisms, and by the enormous diversity of students the ``open door''
welcomes.
At ACC, our students range in age from 17 to 70, they have a huge
variety of academic goals, are at different levels of college
readiness, and increasing come from traditionally underserved
populations. It is our mission, as a community college, to meet the
needs of the diverse and rapidly changing demographics of our society
through:
General education or core curriculum for transfer-bound
students
Workforce training in high-demand careers, such as nursing
``Access'' or ``developmental'' programs to assist those
who are not yet ``collegeready.''
Adult Basic Education for adults who need help with
writing, reading or math, GED preparation and English-as-a-Second
Language.
Extensive community outreach programs that create a
college going culture
According to the U.S. Census, Texas is a majority-minority state,
with Hispanics representing the fastest growing segment of the
population. From 1990 to 2005, the Hispanic population almost doubled
in size, reaching 7.9 million. In Central Texas, the numbers are just
as telling, with Hispanics making up nearly 60 percent of the local
school district.
While we are fortunate to have a diverse population, we also are
keenly aware that the fastest growing demographic groups are also those
with lower high school graduation rates and lower participation rates
in higher education. Just as the need for an educated workforce is
increasing, the number of students enrolling in higher education is
falling.
If we don't ``close the gap,'' simply put, we are headed for a
crisis.
Texas risks not having enough educated, highly-skilled workers to
meet demand, creating a disincentive for existing businesses to expand,
pushing new industries away, and leaving residents with fewer dollars
in their pocket. The economy will be hit hard.
The state will lose jobs
Citizens will earn & spend less money
There will be fewer contributors to the local tax base
And, social services costs will continue to increase.
In contrast, by providing access to affordable higher education,
community colleges are able to help students find better jobs, earn
higher wages, spend more, and contribute more equitably to the local
tax base. Increasing the number of college graduates and trained
workers helps reduce pressure on social services.
Providing access to affordable higher education is a MUST!
The State of Texas is addressing these challenges through its
Closing the Gaps initiative to enroll an additional 630,000 students
into higher education by 2015. For the ACC District this means
increasing enrollment from 33,000 to nearly 40,000 by 2015.
And, we are pleased to report that the ACC District is successfully
meeting these goals, but we also need the help of good government
policy to continue to reach more traditionally underserved populations.
From fall 2001 to fall 2006, ACC's overall enrollment
increased 14% with
A 31% increase in Hispanic students
From fall 2000 to fall 2006, the number of Hispanic
graduates increased 60%
The ACC District is less than 1% point away from being
designated a Hispanic Serving Institution
The increase in enrollment is partly due to an innovative,
proactive program called College Connection. Implemented in 2004, the
ACC District program delivered college assessment, admissions, and
financial aid services to area high schools, giving seniors individual
assistance for transitioning to college. One year after it began, ACC
experienced a 37% increase in college attendance among high school
graduates, particularly those from traditionally underserved
communities. The success of College Connection has garnered national
media attention. ACC received the Star Award from the Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board and a national Bellwether Award.
College Connection is now offered in 22 school districts within the
ACC District Service Area. Considered a statewide model by the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board for establishing a college-going
culture among Hispanics and other ethnic minorities, more than a dozen
community colleges have implemented similar programs across the state
and the nation. Maine and Florida have adopted statewide initiatives
modeled after ACC College Connection.
Engaging high school students early is also crucial to successfully
increasing enrollment among Hispanics. The ACC District's Early College
Start program gives high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to
earn up to a year's worth of college credit -at little to no cost--
before they graduate! For the college's tax paying residents, Early
College Start is free; for those outside of the district, the dual
credit classes are only $40 each. And it's working! Nearly half (46%)
of Early College Start students enroll at ACC within two years after
high school graduation.
The college's outreach extends well beyond high school and into the
elementary and middle school years. ACC's Summer Youth Programs provide
fun, educational opportunities for children of all ages to improve
their math and science skills, explore careers, and see first-hand what
a college campus is like.
Noelle Hernandez, a current ACC student, is living proof that early
engagement is the key to closing the gap between Hispanics and higher
education. She enrolled in ACC's Summer Youth Program in 5th grade and
returned several years later as a camp volunteer. Noelle has stated
often that had it not been for this opportunity, she might not have
ever considered college an option. She is now well on her way to
receiving an associate degree in Commercial Music Management and plans
to transfer to the University of Texas.
In line with the unique mission of community colleges, the ACC
District also provides programs for adults that help them overcome
barriers to higher education. Through our Adult Basic Education
program, English-as-a-Second Language and GED classes are provided free
of cost. These programs are increasingly bridging the gap to higher
education for Hispanics. In fall 2006, more than 50% of ACC's GED
graduates returned to the college to pursue college credit courses as
the result of our Adult Education College Connection Program.
One of our GED students is here with us today. Irma Apolinar was
born in Mexico City, one of 11 children who grew up in a hard working
family where higher education was not an option. The family moved to
the U.S., at the age of 15, Irma got married, had a child, and dropped
out of school to help make ends meet. Her baby is now 16, she is a U.S.
citizen, and just recently returned to school. Irma came to ACC to get
her GED. She graduated, was awarded a Texas Association of Chicanos in
Higher Education scholarship and a work-study job in our Student
Success Office. I am happy to report that Irma is well on her way to an
associate degree in Business Management and hopes one day to earn a
four-year degree. She's already talking about getting her children
enrolled in Early College Start and her sister is now attending ACC,
working on an associate degree in Accounting.
We now have more than 8,000 Hispanic students and growing. Irma is
one of many first generation college success stories at ACC.
But Irma tells us, and this is true of many of our students, her
future success depends on the availability of financial aid. If the
money is there, she WILL continue her education, and she will better be
able to help her children attend college. Title V is vital to keeping
these students in school and creating a college going culture one
family at a time.
We are fortunate to have quality faculty and staff who make all of
these student outreach and recruitment programs successful. And just as
fortunate to have community partnerships that help the ACC District
exceed our Closing the Gaps goals.
One such partnership is Capital IDEA, lifting working families out
of poverty by sponsoring educational case management services that lead
to lifelong financial independence. Capital IDEA funds qualified
students' tuition, books, childcare, and works with them to secure
employment with good salaries, benefits, and opportunity for career
growth.
Just as crucial as minority recruitment is, however, so is
retention. With an increase in Hispanics and ``first generation''
college students there exists a need for resources to keep students
engaged. ACC's El Centro, or the Latino/Latin American Studies Center,
offers Hispanic students mentoring and an opportunity to become
involved in the local Latino community.
Similarly, ACC's Center for Public Policy and Political Studies was
established to enable and empower ACC students to gain knowledge and
experience of, and to actively participate in varied political and
policy processes that govern our state and nation. The first of its
kind at a community college, the Center is committed to education,
civic engagement, informed decision-making, critical analysis, and
understanding cultures.
As ACC meets the benchmark enrollment criteria for HSI, we work to
expand existing programs and implement new initiatives under Title V.
In our quest to increase enrollment among traditionally underserved
students, the ACC District faces many challenges:
Expanding college access
Keeping college affordable
Providing additional financial aid (scholarships, grants,
work-study)
Expanding outreach programs such as ACC's College
Connection, Early College Start, and Summer Youth Program to prepare
secondary students for higher education
Expanding Student Support & Success services to assist
students in reaching their goals
Increasing opportunities for lifelong learning and
workforce training
Offering additional ``access'' programs to get students
``college-ready'' such as an intensive remediation course to improve
student performance on the required assessments
Developing a new University Transfer Center that offers
counseling, workshops, tours, and establishes alliances with faculty
members at receiving four-year institutions by discipline, to
strengthen continued student success
Strengthening institutional capacity to further enhance
libraries to include expanded cultural studies sections
Expanding faculty development programs that focus on
teaching diverse communities and diverse learners
All of the college's seven campuses are near capacity, and ACC is
expected to enroll an additional 20,000 students by 2025, where will we
put them?
The ACC District Facilities Master Plan calls for the expansion and
renovation of several existing facilities and the construction of new
campuses in areas where the demographics suggest an expansion of higher
education services are needed. But expansions such as these take
millions of dollars.
Unlike four-year institutions, community colleges do no have their
facilities paid for by state government. Although we do receive an ever
declining proportion of state appropriations, most of our revenue comes
from local tax dollars and student tuition. Although the college
continues to pursue annexation of areas to increase its taxing
district, the burden on students needs to remain low for us to meet our
Closing the Gaps goals.
Another challenge involves funding the employment of additional
faculty and staff. Quality faculty from diverse backgrounds are needed
for the success of Hispanic and other first generation college
students. Skilled staff is also crucial to support recruitment efforts
such as College Connection
We are grateful to you for implementing Title V funding for
Hispanic Serving Institutions. Higher education depends on this funding
and frankly cannot achieve the goals expected of us without assistance
from Congress.
Community colleges are the primary provider of transfer students to
four-year colleges and universities, we are the primary trainer of
those seeking high-demand careers, and we are primary source of
``access'' programs, lending a helping hand to students who are not yet
college ready. Community colleges are the engines that drive economic
development.
If we are to meet our objectives we must work together. What's at
stake if we don't?
America's reputation for educational excellence
Quality of life
Competitive strength in the economy
Our nation's ability to confront the challenges of the
future
We encourage you to place a priority on Title V funding as our
demographics here in Texas and across the nation continue to change.
Never have Hispanic Serving Institutions been so important to America's
economic well-being than they are today. While most Hispanic Serving
Institutions are succeeding in the recruitment, retention and
graduation of Hispanics, we must do more to break down the barriers to
higher education. Time is running out.
We have a goal--to reverse a potentially devastating trend by
increasing college attendance and graduation among Hispanics.
Please help us achieve this goal--everyone's future depends on it!
______
Chairman Hinojosa. Would the young lady, Ehrma, please
stand and be recognized? [Applause.]
Ehrma, congratulations. I could identify with you, because
I also come from a family of 11, seven boys and four girls. And
I read your aspirations, and I think we will add one more--to
some day be a Congresswoman representing this area. [Applause.]
Mr. Scott, would you please start?
STATEMENT OF GEORGE SCOTT, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, WORKFORCE,
AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Scott. Certainly. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be here
today to discuss the federal programs to support low income and
minority-serving institutions. Beginning in 1965, Congress
created several programs under the Higher Education Act, HEA,
to strengthen and support developing post-secondary
institutions. Congress subsequently expanded HEA to include
programs that support institutions that provide low income and
minority students with access to higher education.
These programs are generally referred to as Title III and
Title V of HEA. The amount of federal funds available for these
programs has nearly doubled from about $230 million in fiscal
year 1999 to about $448 million fiscal year 2007. Given the
recent expansion of these programs, and that HEA is slated for
reauthorization this year, this hearing presents a timely
opportunity to explore these grant programs.
My testimony today will focus on how institutions use their
Title III and Title V grants, what objectives and strategies
the Department of Education has developed for these grant
programs, and to what extent education monitors and provides
assistance to institutions.
In summary, we found that grantees most commonly reported
using Title III and Title V grant funds to strengthen academic
quality, improve support for students, and improve
institutional management. These institutions also reported a
wide range of benefits from receiving grant funds. However, our
review of grant files found that institutions experienced
challenges such as staffing problems, which sometimes resulted
in implementation delays.
For example, one grantee reported delays in implementing
its management information system, due to the turnover of
experienced staff. In addition, an education official told us
that common problems include delays in construction of
facilities and hiring of staff. As a result of these
implementation challenges, some grantees need additional time
to complete grant activities.
Although education has established outcome-based objectives
and performance measures, it needs to take additional steps to
align some of these strategies and objectives and develop
additional performance measures. When we previously reported on
education strategic planning efforts, its measures were focused
on program outputs rather than outcomes, which did not assess
program impacts.
While education has made progress in developing more
outcome-based measures, we found insufficient links between the
strategies for improving institution's administrative and
fiscal stability, with its objectives to increase student
outcomes. To address challenges in measuring progress in these
areas, education is conducting a study of the financial health
of low income and minority-serving institutions supported by
Title III and Title V programs.
Education has made changes to improve its monitoring and
assistance in response to our prior recommendations. However,
additional study is needed to determine the effectiveness of
these efforts. For example, education uses risk indicators
designed to better target grantees that may require site
visits, but a more extensive review is required to determine
the quality of these visits. While education has implemented an
electronic monitoring system, it currently lacks the ability to
systematically track grantee performance as the system was
designed to do.
Education has also expanded its staff training specific to
monitoring assistance by offering courses such as an overview
of grant monitoring. However, more information is needed to
assess how well courses meet staff needs, because education's
new training and recordkeeping system does not contain
information from prior systems.
Finally, while education provides technical assistance
through various methods, its ability to target assistance
remains limited, because its feedback mechanisms may not
encourage open communication with grantees.
In conclusion, we previously recommended that education
take steps to ensure that monitoring and technical assistance
efforts are targeted to at-risk grantees. Education agreed with
our recommendation, and has taken actions to improve its
monitoring and assistance. While education has made progress in
addressing these issues, it is clear that sustained management
attention is needed to ensure that the agency is committed to
continuous improvement in this area, and that it can ultimately
determine to what extent these grant programs demonstrate
appropriate and measurable results.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would
be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Scott follows:]
Prepared Statement of George A. Scott, Director, Education, Workforce
and Income Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Low-income and minority serving institutions
Education Has Taken Steps to Improve Monitoring and
Assistance, but Further Progress is Needed
In their performance reports, the six grantees we reviewed most
commonly reported using Title III and Title V grant funds to strengthen
academic quality; improve support for students and student success; and
improve institutional management and reported a wide range of benefits.
For example, Sinte Gleska, a tribal college in South Dakota, used part
of its Title III grant to fund the school's distance learning
department, to provide students access to academic and research
resources otherwise not available in its rural isolated location. Our
review of grant files found that institutions experienced challenges,
such as staffing problems, which sometimes resulted in implementation
delays. For example, one grantee reported delays in implementing its
management information system due to the turn over of experienced
staff. As a result of these implementation challenges, grantees
sometimes need additional time to complete planned activities.
Although Education has established outcome based objectives and
performance measures, it needs to take steps to align some strategies
and objectives, and develop additional performance measures. Education
has established an overall strategy to improve the academic,
administrative, and fiscal stability of grantees, along with objectives
and performance measures focused on student outcomes, such as
graduation rates. In 2004, we reported that Education's strategic
planning efforts were focused on program outputs that did not assess
programmatic impacts, such as the percentage of goals that grantees met
or exceeded, rather than outcomes. While Education has made progress in
developing outcome based measures, we found insufficient links between
its strategies for improving administrative and fiscal stability with
its student outcome objective. To address challenges in measuring
institutional progress in areas such as administrative and fiscal
stability, Education is conducting a study of the financial health of
low income and minority serving institutions supported by Title III and
Title V.
Education has made changes to better target monitoring and
assistance in response to recommendations GAO made in 2004, however,
additional study is needed to determine the effectiveness of these
efforts. For example, Education uses risk indicators designed to better
target grantees that may require site visits. While Education
implemented an electronic monitoring system, it lacks the ability to
systematically track grantee performance as designed. While Education
provides technical assistance through various methods, its ability to
target assistance remains limited in that its feedback mechanisms may
not encourage open communication. Specifically, Education relies on
grantee performance reports that are tied to funding decisions to
solicit feedback.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased to be
here today to discuss the federal government's programs to support low-
income and minority serving institutions (MSIs). We previously reported
on the Department of Education's efforts to monitor and assist these
institutions.\1\ Beginning in 1965, Congress created several programs
under the Higher Education Act (HEA) to strengthen and support
developing postsecondary institutions. In subsequent reauthorizations,
Congress expanded the HEA to include programs that support institutions
that provide low-income and minority students with access to higher
education.\2\ These programs are generally referred to as Titles III
and V of the HEA. The amount of federal funds available for these
programs has nearly doubled from about $230 million in fiscal year 1999
to about $448 million in fiscal year 2007. Given the recent expansion
of these programs and that HEA is slated for reauthorization this year,
this hearing presents a timely opportunity to explore these grant
programs. My testimony today focuses on (1) how institutions used their
Title III and Title V grants and the benefits they received from using
these grant funds, (2) what objectives and strategies the Department of
Education (Education) has developed for Title III and Title V programs,
and (3) to what extent Education monitors and provides assistance to
Title III and Title V institutions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ GAO, Low-Income and Minority Serving Institutions: Department
of Education Could Improve Its Monitoring and Assistance, GAO-04-961
(Washington, D.C. : Sept. 21, 2004).
\2\ These programs include Title III, Part A Strengthening
Institutions; Title III Part A American Indian Tribally Controlled
Colleges and Universities; Title III, Part A Alaska Native and Native
Hawaiian Serving Institutions; Title III, Part B Strengthening
Historically Black Colleges and Universities; Title V, Part A
Developing Hispanic Serving Institutions. Throughout the report when we
refer to Title III and Title V programs or grants, we are referring to
these specific programs. Our review did not include Title III, Part B
Historically Black Professional or Graduate Institutions; Part D HBCU
Capital Financing; or Part E Minority Science and Engineering
Improvement Program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In summary, we found that grantees most commonly reported using
Title III and Title V grant funds to strengthen academic quality;
improve support for students and student success; and improve
institutional management and reported a wide range of benefits. For
example, Sinte Gleska, a tribal college in South Dakota, used part of
its Title III grant to fund the school's distance learning department,
and to provide students access to academic and research resources
otherwise not available at its rural isolated location.
However, our review of grant files found that institutions
experienced challenges, such as staffing problems, which sometimes
resulted in implementation delays. For example, one grantee reported
delays in implementing its management information system due to the
turnover of experienced staff. In addition, Education officials told us
that common problems include delays in construction of facilities and
hiring of staff. As a result of these implementation challenges,
grantees sometimes need additional time to complete planned activities.
Although Education has established outcome based objectives and
performance measures, it needs to take additional steps to align some
of its strategies and objectives, and develop additional performance
measures. Education has established an overall strategy to improve the
academic, administrative, and fiscal stability of HBCUs, HSIs, and
Tribal Colleges, along with objectives and performance measures focused
on maintaining or increasing student outcomes, such as graduation
rates. When we reported on Education's strategic planning efforts in
our 2004 report, its measures were focused on program outputs rather
than outcomes, which did not assess programmatic impacts. While
Education has made progress in developing more outcome based measures,
we found insufficient links between its strategies for improving
administrative and fiscal stability with its objectives to increase
student outcomes. To address challenges in measuring institutional
progress in areas such as administrative and fiscal stability,
Education is conducting a study of the financial health of low income
and minority serving institutions supported by Title III and Title V
programs.
Education has made changes to better target monitoring and
assistance in response to recommendations we made in our 2004 report,
however, additional study is needed to determine the effectiveness of
these efforts. For example, Education uses risk indicators designed to
better target at risk grantees that may require site visits, but a more
extensive review is required to determine the quality of these visits.
While Education implemented an electronic monitoring system, it lacks
the ability to systematically track grantee performance as designed.
Education has expanded its training specific to monitoring and
assistance by offering courses such as an overview of grant monitoring.
However, more information is needed to assess how well courses meet
staff needs because Education's new training recordkeeping system does
not contain information from prior systems. While Education provides
technical assistance through various methods, its ability to target
assistance remains limited in that its feedback mechanisms may not
encourage open communication.
To determine how institutions used Title III and Title V funds and
the resulting benefits, we reviewed Education's 2006 Annual Performance
Reports for six grantee institutions of Title III and Title V grant
programs to determine uses and benefits of grant funds, and challenges
associated with project implementation. Education selected these
institutions based on our request for examples of schools with typical
grant experience. The results from our review cannot be generalized to
all grantees, and we did not independently verify the accuracy of the
information that grantees reported. To determine the objectives,
strategies, and performance measures Education has developed for Title
III and Title V programs, we talked with Education officials and
reviewed program and planning documents. To determine how Education
monitors and provides assistance to the Title III and Title V grantees,
we interviewed Education officials and reviewed documents, including
program policies and guidance. We also reviewed applicable laws and
regulations, and analyzed data regarding the characteristics of fiscal
year 2006 grantee institutions as reported in the Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). To assess the completeness
of the IPEDS data, we reviewed the National Center for Education
Statistics' documentation on how the data were collected and performed
electronic tests to identify missing or out-of-range values. On the
basis of these reviews and tests, we found the data sufficiently
reliable for our purposes. Our work was performed in May 2007 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Background
Postsecondary institutions that serve large proportions of
economically disadvantaged and minority students are eligible to
receive grants from Education through Title III and Title V of the
Higher Education Act, as amended, to improve academic and program
quality, expand educational opportunities, address institutional
management issues, enhance institutional stability, and improve student
services and outcomes. Institutions eligible for funding under Titles
III and V include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs),
Tribal Colleges, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Alaska Native
and Native Hawaiian Institutions, and other undergraduate institutions
of higher education that serve low-income students. While these
institutions differ in terms of the racial and ethnic makeup of their
students, they serve a disproportionate number of financially needy
students and have limited financial resources, such as endowment funds,
with which to serve them. (See app. I for characteristics of Title III
and Title V institutions and their students.) Title III and Title V
statutory provisions generally outline broad program goals for
strengthening participating institutions, but provide grantees with
flexibility in deciding which approaches will best meet their needs. An
institution can use the grants to focus on one or more activities that
will help it achieve the goals articulated in its comprehensive
development plan--a plan that each applicant must submit with its grant
application outlining its strategy for achieving growth and self-
sufficiency. The statutory and regulatory eligibility criteria for all
of the programs, with the exception of the HBCU program, contain
requirements that institutions applying for grants serve a significant
number of economically disadvantaged students. See table 1 for
additional information about eligibility requirements.
Historically, one of the primary missions of Title III has been to
support Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which play a
significant role in providing postsecondary opportunities for African
American, low-income, and educationally disadvantaged students. These
institutions receive funding, in part, to remedy past discriminatory
action of the states and the federal government against black colleges
and universities. For a number of years, all institutions that serve
financially needy students--both minority serving and nonminority
serving--competed for funding under the Strengthening Institutions
Program, also under Title III. However, in 1998, the Higher Education
Act was amended to create new grant programs specifically designated to
provide financial support for Tribal Colleges, Alaska Native and Native
Hawaiian Institutions, and Hispanic Serving Institutions.\3\ These
programs have provided additional opportunities for Minority Serving
Institutions to compete for federal grant funding. In 1999, the first
year of funding for the expanded programs, 55 Hispanic Serving, Tribal,
Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Institutions were awarded grants,
and as of fiscal year 2006, 197 such institutions had new or
continuation grants. (See table 2).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Education has proposed discontinuing funding for Title III,
part A Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Institutions in its fiscal year
2008 budget proposal. According to Education, the types of activities
supported by this program may be carried out under the Title III
Strengthening Institutions program. Institutions whose projects would
be discontinued would be eligible to seek funds under the Strengthening
Institutions program.
The grant programs are designed to increase the self-sufficiency
and strengthen the capacity of eligible institutions. Congress has
identified many areas in which institutions may use funds for improving
their academic programs. Authorized uses include, but are not limited
to, construction, maintenance, renovation or improvement of educational
facilities; purchase or rental of certain kinds of equipment or
services; support of faculty development; and purchase of library
books, periodicals, and other educational materials.
Grantees Reported a Range of Uses and Benefits for Title III and Title
V Grants but Cited Some Implementation Challenges
In their grant performance reports, the six grantees we recently
reviewed most commonly reported using Title III and Title V grant funds
to strengthen academic quality; improve support for students and
student success; and improve institutional management and reported a
range of benefits. To a lesser extent, grantees also reported using
grant funds to improve their fiscal stability. However, our review of
grant files found that institutions experienced challenges, such as
staffing problems, which sometimes resulted in implementation delays.
Efforts to Improve Academic Quality--Four of the six
grantees we reviewed reported focusing at least one of their grant
activities on improving academic quality. The goal of these efforts was
to enhance faculty effectiveness in the classroom and to improve the
learning environment for students. For example, Ilisagvik College, an
Alaska Native Serving Institution, used part of its Title III, part A
Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian grant to provide instruction and
student support services to prepare students for college-level math and
English courses. According to the institution, many of its students
come to college unprepared for math and English, and grant funds have
helped the school to increase completion rates in these courses by 14
percentage points.
Efforts to Improve Support for Students and Student
Success--Four of the six grantees we reviewed reported focusing at
least one of their grant activities on improving support for students
and student success. This area includes, among other things, tutoring,
counseling, and student service programs designed to improve academic
success. Sinte Gleska, a tribal college in South Dakota, used part of
its Title III grant to fund the school's distance learning department.
Sinte Gleska reported that Title III has helped the school develop and
extend its programs, particularly in the area of course delivery
through technology. In addition, the school is able to offer its
students access to academic and research resources otherwise not
available in its rural isolated location.
Efforts to Improve Institutional Management--Four of the
six grantees we reviewed reported focusing at least one of their grant
activities on improving institutional management. Examples in this area
include improving the technological infrastructure, constructing and
renovating facilities, and establishing or enhancing management
systems, among others. For example, Chaminade University, a Native
Hawaiian Serving Institution, used part of its Title III grant to
enhance the school's academic and administrative information system.
According to Chaminade University, the new system allows students to
access class lists and register on-line, and readily access their
student financial accounts. Additionally, the Title III grant has
helped provide students with the tools to explore course options and
develop financial responsibility.
Efforts to Improve Fiscal Stability at Grantee
Institutions--Two of the six institutions we reviewed reported focusing
at least one of their grant activities on improving its fiscal
stability. Examples include activities such as establishing or
enhancing a development office, establishing or improving an endowment
fund, and increasing research dollars. Development officers at
Concordia College, a historically black college in Alabama, reported
using its Title III grant to raise the visibility of the college with
potential donors.
While grantees reported a range of uses and benefits, four of the
six grantees also reported challenges in implementing their projects.
For example, one grantee reported delays in implementing its management
information system due to the turn-over of experienced staff. Another
grantee reported project delays because needed software was not
delivered as scheduled. In addition, Education officials told us that
common problems for grantees include delays in constructing facilities
and hiring. As a result of these implementation challenges, grantees
sometimes need additional time to complete planned activities. For
example, 45 percent of the 49 grantees in the Title V, developing
Hispanic Serving Institutions program that ended their 5-year grant
period in September 2006 had an available balance greater than $1,000,
ranging from less than 1 percent (about $2,500) to 16 percent (about
$513,000) of the total grant. According to Education regulations,
grantees generally have the option of extending the grant for 1 year
after the 5-year grant cycle has ended to obligate remaining funds.
Education Has Developed New Objectives, Strategies, and Performance
Measures that Focus on Program Outcomes, but Challenges Remain
Education has established a series of new objectives, strategies,
and performance measures that are focused on key student outcomes for
Title III and Title V programs. As part of Education's overall goal for
higher education within its 2007-2012 Strategic Plan, Education
established a supporting strategy to improve the academic,
administrative, and fiscal stability of HBCUs, HSIs, and Tribal
Colleges. Education has also established objectives in its annual
program performance plans to maintain or increase student enrollment,
persistence,\4\ and graduation rates at all Title III and Title V
institutions, and has developed corresponding performance measures.
When we reported on Education's strategic planning efforts in our 2004
report, it measured its progress in achieving objectives by measuring
outputs, such as the percentage of institutional goals that grantees
had related to academic quality that were met or exceeded. However,
these measures did not assess the programmatic impact of its efforts.
Education's new objectives and performance measures are designed to be
more outcome focused. In addition, the targets for these new
performance measures were established based on an assessment of Title
III and Title V institutions' prior performance compared to performance
at all institutions that participate in federal student financial
assistance programs. Education officials told us that they made these
changes, in part, to address concerns identified by the Office of
Management and Budget that Education did not have specific long-term
performance measures that focus on outcomes and meaningfully reflect
the purpose of the program.
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\4\ The percentage of full-time undergraduate students who were in
their first year of postsecondary enrollment in the previous year and
are enrolled in the current year at the same institution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education needs to take additional steps to align some of its
strategies and objectives, and develop additional performance measures.
GAO has previously reported that performance plans may be improved if
strategies are linked to specific performance goals and the plans
describe how the strategies will contribute to the achievement of those
goals.\5\ We found insufficient links between strategies and objectives
in Education's strategic plans and annual program performance plans.
Specifically, Education needs to better link its strategies for
improving administrative and fiscal stability with its objectives to
increase or maintain enrollment, persistence, and graduation rates
because it is unclear how these strategies impact Education's chosen
outcome measures.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ GAO, Agency Performance Plans: Examples of Practices That Can
Improve Usefulness to Decisionmakers.GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-69 (Feb. 26,
1999.) Washington, D.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fact, GAO and other federal agencies have previously found
Education faces challenges in measuring institutional progress in areas
such as administrative and fiscal stability. To address part of this
problem, Education is conducting a study of the financial health of
low-income and minority serving institutions supported by Title III and
Title V funds to determine, among other things, the major factors
influencing financial health and whether the data Education collects on
institutions can be used to measure fiscal stability. Education
officials expect the study to be completed in 2008.
Education Has Made Some Changes Designed to Better Target Monitoring
and Assistance, but Its Efforts Remain Limited
Education made changes designed to better target monitoring and
assistance in response to recommendations we made in our 2004 report;
however, additional work is needed to ensure the effectiveness of these
efforts. Specifically, we recommended that the Secretary of Education
take steps to ensure that monitoring and technical assistance plans are
carried out and targeted to at-risk grantees and the needs of grantees
guide the technical assistance offered. Education needed to take
several actions to implement this recommendation, including completing
its electronic monitoring tools and training programs to ensure that
department staff are adequately prepared to monitor and assist grantees
and using appropriately collected feedback from grantees to target
assistance.
Education has taken steps to better target at-risk grantees, but
more information is needed to determine its effectiveness. In assessing
risk, department staff are to use a variety of sources, including
expenditure of grant funds, review of performance reports, and
federally required audit reports. However, according to a 2007 report
issued by Education's Office of Inspector General, program staff did
not ensure grantees complied with federal audit reporting requirements.
As a result, Education lacks assurance that grantees are appropriately
managing federal funds, which increases the potential risk for waste,
fraud, and abuse.\6\ In addition to reviewing grantee fiscal,
performance, and compliance information, program staff are also
required to consider a number of factors affecting the ability of
grantees to manage their grants in the areas of project management and
implementation, funds management, communication, and performance
measurement. Education reports that identifying appropriate risk
factors have been a continuous process and that these factors are still
being refined. On the basis of results of the risk assessments, program
staff are to follow up with grantees to determine whether they are in
need of further monitoring and assistance. Follow-up can take many
forms, ranging from telephone calls and e-mails to on-site compliance
visits and technical assistance if issues cannot not be readily
addressed. In targeting grantees at risk, Education officials told us
that the department has recently changed its focus to improve the
quality of monitoring while making the best use of limited resources.
For example, Education officials said that risk criteria are being used
to target those grantees most in need of sites visits rather than
requiring staff to conduct a minimum number each year. Based on
information Education provided, program staff conducted site visits at
28 of the 517 institutions receiving Title III and Title V funding in
fiscal year 2006, but a more extensive review is required to determine
the nature and quality of them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Office of Inspector General, Department of Education, Audit of
the Discretionary Grant Award Process in the Office of Postsecondary
Education (OPE), CAN: ED-OIG/A19G0001 (Apr 16, 2007).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education's ability to effectively target monitoring and assistance
to grantees may be hampered because of limitations in its electronic
monitoring system, which are currently being addressed. Education
implemented this system in December 2004 and all program staff were
required to use the system as part of their daily monitoring
activities. The system was designed to access funding information from
existing systems, such as its automated payment system, as well as to
access information from a departmental database that contains
institutional performance reports. According to Education, further
refinements to its electronic monitoring system to systematically track
and monitor grantees. For example, the current system does not allow
users to identify the risk by institution. Education also plans to
automate and integrate the risk-based plan with their electronic
monitoring system. Education anticipates the completion of system
enhancements by the end of 2007. Because efforts are ongoing, Education
has limited ability to systematically track grantee performance and
fiscal information.
Regarding training, Education reports that it has expanded course
offerings to program staff specific to monitoring and assistance.
Education officials told us that the department has only a few mandated
courses, but noted that a number of training courses are offered, such
as grants monitoring overview and budget review and analysis, to help
program staff acquire needed skills for monitoring and assistance.
However, because Education recently moved to a new training
recordkeeping system that does not include information from prior
systems, we were unable to determine the extent to which program staff
participated in these offerings. We reported in 2004 that staff were
unaware of the guidelines for monitoring grantees and more information
is needed to determine the extent to which new courses are meeting the
needs of program staff.
While Education provides technical assistance through program
conferences, workshops, and routine interaction between program
officers and grantees, Education's ability to target assistance remains
limited, in that its feedback mechanisms may not encourage open
communication. Education officials told us that they primarily rely on
grantee feedback transmitted in annual performance reports and
communication between program officers and grantees. As we reported in
2004, Education stated that it was considering ways to collect feedback
separate from its reporting process for all its grant programs but no
such mechanisms have been developed.
Prior Recommendations and Agency Response
We previously recommended that the Secretary of Education take
steps to ensure that monitoring and technical assistance plans are
carried out and targeted to at-risk grantees and the needs of grantees
guide the technical assistance offered. These steps should include
completing its automated monitoring tools and training programs to
ensure that department staff are adequately prepared to monitor and
assist grantees and using appropriately collected feedback from
grantees to target assistance.
Education agreed with our recommendation, and has taken actions to
target its monitoring and technical assistance to at-risk grantees.
However, additional study is needed to determine the effectiveness of
these efforts.
Mr. Chairman, this completes my prepared statement. I would be
happy to respond to any questions you or other Members of the
Subcommittee may have at this time.
APPENDIX I: CHARACTERISTICS OF FISCAL YEAR 2006 TITLE III AND TITLE V
GRANTEES
______
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Scott. We will ask
questions after all the presenters have completed their
presentation.
Dr. Earvin?
STATEMENT OF DR. LARRY EARVIN, PRESIDENT, HUSTON-TILLOTSON
UNIVERSITY
Mr. Earvin. Good morning, Chairman Hinojosa, and
Representative Grijalva. Let me first welcome you back to the
capital of the great State of Texas. We are really pleased this
morning to have an opportunity to discuss with you our views on
several key issues as you draft a bill to reauthorize the
Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended.
The oral testimony I present this morning will largely
focus, as you requested, on the importance of Title IIIB of the
Act for historically black colleges and universities, and to
the higher education aspirations of African-American youth and
their parents.
I also want to highlight the recommendations for improving
Part B, strengthening historically black colleges and
universities program, including Section 323, for all of the 97
eligible undergraduate HBCUs, as well as Section 326 of
historically black graduate institutions that currently
provides funding for 18 HBCU institutions and doctoral
programs.
Given the limitations of time this morning, I have prepared
a comprehensive written statement which I will submit for the
record.
Executive Order 213-256 identifies 105 historically black
colleges and universities. While 97 HBCUs are currently
eligible to participate in the Part B program and meet the
statutory definition in Section 322.2 of the Act, these
institutions were founded prior to the enactment of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, and whose principal mission then, and is
now, the education of black Americans.
While some private and public HBCUs were founded as early
as 1837, many public colleges and universities were founded in
the south in the late 1800s and early 1900s, to prevent newly-
freed slaves from being educated in white colleges and
universities.
Congress' enactment of the Black College Act, as part of
the Higher Education Act amendments of 1986, not only
established a unique funding mechanism for allocating resources
among a class of eligible institutions, but outlined a series
of authorized activities focused on institution's capacity-
building and to strengthen the capacity of HBCUs to increase
the number of students earning degrees.
The universe of HBCUs enrolls more than 13 percent of all
African-American students in higher education--almost 300,000--
yet comprises only 3 percent of the nation's 4,197 institutions
of higher education. America's 105 HBCUs have a long and
distinguished history of producing high quality graduates. Many
of them have achieved extraordinary success in medicine, law,
education, the arts, sciences, and professional athletes.
With that background, let me highlight three points and
recommendations for the subcommittee. First, the Title III,
Part B, strengthening HBCUs programs, is critical to the future
of these institutions and should be reauthorized and improved
by incorporating several technical amendments that are agreed
upon by the entire HBCU community. These amendments are
provided in my full draft to you.
Second, the Section 326 of the historically black graduate
institutions programs has always limited institutional and
programmatic participation to those, first, professional degree
programs, such as law, medicine, and dentistry, and to doctoral
programs in the physical and natural sciences. I strongly
support the inclusion of language in Section 326E(2) that
further clarifies this focus for the HBGI program and limits
the master's degree funding program to terminal masters only.
The inclusion of master's degrees without this restriction
would dramatically expand institutional participation in the
program. The recent appropriations history for Section 326 by
Congress does not support such expansion, including a large
number of master's degree programs with 13 with threatened
funding for the current 18 institutional participants, one of
which is Texas Southern in our own State, and funding for
Section 323 that benefits most HBCUs.
Smaller institutions like Huston-Tillotson University,
Jarvis Christian College, Wiley College, and Texas College here
in Texas, do not want to see funding for the HBGI program
become a competitor in the Congressional appropriations
process.
Third, the HBCU community strongly supports the creation of
a new funding stream for the predominantly black institutions
in Title III, Part A. We have worked closely with Congressman
Danny K. Davis and with Senator Barack Obama of Illinois to
design a carefully crafted and constitutionally permissible
means of funding these institutions. An authorization of $25
million is requested for this program.
Thank you again for----
Chairman Hinojosa. Dr. Earvin, I am going to yield an
additional two minutes for you to complete your presentation.
And be assured that the entire presentation that you provided
us will be made part of the record.
Mr. Earvin. Thank you. Thank you again for inviting me to
testify, and I welcome any questions that you, Mr. Chairman,
may have. And I will provide a written copy of this revision
for your records.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Earvin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Larry Earvin, President, Huston-Tillotson
University
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon and Members of the
Committee, thank syou for affording me the opportunity to appear before
you today on behalf of Huston-Tillotson University over which I am
privileged to preside and UNCF of which Huston-Tillotson is a member
along with thirty five (35) private Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs). I am delighted also to appear before you today as
a director of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher
Education (NAFEO), the nation's only membership association of all of
the two-year, four-year, public and private HBCUs and Predominantly
Black Institutions (PBIs), some one hundred twenty (120) institutions,
representing almost 800,000 students, nearly 53,000 faculty and more
than 5 million alumni. NAFEO's more than 120 member institutions are
located in twenty-five states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin
Islands.
I am especially grateful to Ruben Hinojosa and Kenny Marchant,
House Education Committee members from the great State of Texas, and to
Congressman Bobby Scott who is in large measure responsible for my
appearing before you today. I also extend my appreciation to attorney
Lezli Baskerville, President and CEO of NAFEO, for the assistance she
provided in shaping this testimony. I hope that while you are here in
Austin, just a short distance from the campus of Huston-Tillotson
University, you will come tour our magnificent campus, experience the
challenging, yet warm and welcoming environment, and see firsthand what
we are doing with private and public dollars; and what we are able to
continue doing thanks in large measure to federal Title III dollars.
Your presence here today on the Monday following your Memorial Day
recess is a testament to the level of importance you place on getting a
better understanding of how Titles III and V work as you continue
congressional efforts to reauthorize the
Higher Education Act. I am eager to share with you my experiences,
those of Huston-Tillotson and those of others in the HBCU phalanx under
Title IIIB, Strengthening the Historically Black Colleges and
Universities. Title IIIB is of signal importance to the survival and
progress of the nation's 105 historically black colleges and
universities.
Before I share with you the abundant successes under and
opportunities for improvement of Title III, I share with you a brief
overview of Huston-Tillotson University Huston-Tillotson University is
a historically black university located in Austin, Texas. It is
affiliated with The United Methodist Church and the United Church of
Christ. It gained university status in 2005.
The mission of the University is to provide its increasingly
diverse student body with an exemplary education that is grounded in
the liberal arts and sciences, balanced with professional development,
and directed to public service and leadership. The University prepares
students with the integrity and civility to thrive in a diverse
society, fosters spiritual development, preserves and promotes interest
in the accomplishments and experiences of the University's historic
constituents and evolving population, and creates and sustains
supportive relationships which advance the Huston-Tillotson University
community.
Huston-Tillotson University awards undergraduates, four year
degrees in business, education, the humanities, natural sciences,
social sciences, science and technology. A multi-cultural, multi-
ethnic, and multi-faith institution, the University welcomes students
of all ages, races, and religions.
In 1966 the 23-acre campus contained an administration building,
science building, two residence halls, student union-dining hall,
gymnasium-auditorium, music hall, lounge, and two other halls. The
Downs-Jones Library houses more that 86,000 volumes, subscribes to more
than 350 periodicals, and is a member of TexShare, a library resource-
sharing program which enables students, faculty, and staff to borrow
books from other member libraries. By the early 1970s new buildings
included a classroom-administration building, a chapel, an addition of
three wings to the women's dormitory, and an addition of two wings to
the men's dormitory. In 2004, the first phase of renovation work was
completed on the Old Administration Building and it reopened after
standing unoccupied for 35 years.
I became the fifth president of the University in 2000.
To provide you with a sense of ``how Title III works,'' I think it
important that you have an understanding of how Title III evolved, why
it was important in 1986, why it remains important today more than two
decades after it was initially included in the Higher Education Act.
Title IIIB of the Higher Education Act of 1965 was first enacted by
Congress as part of the Higher Education Act Amendments of 1986 (P.L.
99-498) as the Historically Black College and University Act, Title
IIIB. It was the official legislative way of recognizing this nation's
sorry history of invidious discrimination against the progeny of slaves
in higher education; of the lingering impact of years of non-support;
and to this day, unequal support by states, funders, corporations and
others for the nation's original and premiere mission-based equal
educational opportunity higher education institutions that we call
HBCUs.
Title IIIB currently provides funding for 97 historically black
college and university (HBCU) undergraduate programs that meet the
definition in section 322(2) of the Act, as well as for 18 Historically
Black Graduate Institutions (HBGIs) specifically named in section 326.
These 18 institutions provide graduate and professional education in
the physical and natural sciences, medicine, veterinary medicine,
dentistry, law, pharmacy and related fields in which African Americans
are underrepresented. A three-pronged formula determines the amount of
each institution's award under section 323 (undergraduate), while five
factors are used to determine the allocation of funds to the
historically black graduate programs under section 326.
The ``Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities''
program has been, and continues to be, the principle source of
institutional assistance for the HBCUs. Since its inception, the Title
IIIB program has been very successful in supporting strategic planning
initiatives, academic program enhancements, administrative and fiscal
management, student services, physical plant improvements, and general
institutional development. Since Congress first funded the Title IIIB
program in FY 1987, the HBCUs have received more than $3 billion in
grant awards through FY 2006.
The Title IIIB dollars are transforming HBCUs to meet the
challenges of a new century with cutting cutting-edge projects in
agriculture, science, technology, and international education. Title
IIIB dollars are also enabling HBCUs to provide vital education, health
care, human needs, economic and community development, and recreation
services for the communities in which they are located. I provide you
ten (10) representative examples of how Title III is working. The
examples include 2and 4-year institutions, urban and rural,
undergraduate and graduate program beneficiaries. I am attaching to
this testimony comments from Alabama State University, Alcorn State
University, Bowie State University, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania,
Fort Valley State University, Hampton University, JF Drake State
Technical College, Kentucky State University, Morehouse School of
Medicine, and Norfolk State University. Please take time to review the
submissions.
What you will find is that the Title IIIB programs are enabling
HBCUs---missionbased, equal educational opportunity institutions--to
continue promoting access and success, and educating more diverse
students which has long been the province of the nation's historically
black colleges and universities. As one author noted, ``HBCUs remain
the patron saints of universal access.'' HBCUs are, in fact, the
``patron saints of universal access AND opportunity.''
By patron saints of ``access and opportunity'' I emphasize that
HBCUs are not just opening their doors to opportunity to a broad and
diverse group of students, many of whom have been traditionally
underserved, but also offering students a college opportunity that is
appropriate for their aspirations, preparation, and abilities. They are
giving traditionally underserved students--the growing majority in
America--an opportunity for a successful postsecondary experience.
HBCUs are having many favorable results. They are generally
offering a good return on the investment. According to data from The
College Board's Trends in College Pricing 2006, and the 2005 NAFEO
Enrollment Survey of HBCUs, private HBCUs on average cost $10,000 per
year less than their white counterparts, when tuition, fees, room and
board are factored in. Public HBCUs on average cost $1,000 less than
their white counterparts. Using Title IIIB programs, over the course of
the past 29 years, HBCUs have made remarkable strides. Consider these
facts:
HBCUs represent only three percent (3%) of all colleges
and universities, yet they enroll sixteen percent (16%) of all African
Americans in 4-year degree granting institutions;
They graduate thirty percent (30%) of African Americans
receiving 4-year degrees, and forty percent (40%) of African Americans
receiving 4-year degrees in STEM areas;
Twenty-four percent (24%) of all PhDs earned each year by
African Americans are conferred by twenty four (24) HBCUs;
Eighteen (18) of the top twenty-three (23) producers of
African Americans who go on to receive science related PhDs are HBCUs;
Four (4) of the top ten (10) producers of successful
African American medical school applicants are HBCUs. These HBCUs
produce twenty percent (20%) more African American applicants than the
other six
(6) institutions combined;
Eight (8) of the top ten (10) producers of African
American engineers are HBCUs.
It is expected that Title III programs will be more sorely needed
than ever so that HBCUs can continue to evolve to meet the changing
characteristics of today's students, today's civic, social, political,
ecumenical and labor force needs. As you are aware, in the forty years
since the Higher Education Act was passed, the more than twenty years
since Title IIIB was enacted, the nation has become more colored, more
culturally diverse, more global, more technological, and more virtual.
The cost of higher education has escalated to keep pace with the
growing scientific, security, and technological demands of the day:
demands for information now, information on-the-go, and to expand the
reach of the information we have and information we need beyond the
boarders of campuses, counties, states, regions, and nations. Title III
programs are enabling HBCUs to keep pace.
It is projected that an even greater burden will be placed on HBCUs
in the coming years as the national demographics change. It is
projected that by the year 2050, one-half of the United States will be
``minorities''. Because HBCUs educate a disproportionate number of
racial and ethnic minorities, it can be expected that a greater
proportion of those seeking a higher education in and around 2050 will
choose to attend an HBCU. Add to the demographics the financial
stagnation that is projected for American workers well into the next
century, and the retrenchment in student grant-aid programs, and it
becomes clear that the demands on HBCUs will be even greater than they
are today. Well into the next century, HBCUs will not only be required
to ``remain at the creative forefront of American education, offering
tools and skills necessary to prepare students for today's competitive
and technological society,'' \1\ but they will also be required to
increase the role that they play as providers of social services.
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\1\ From the address of President Bill Clinton on the occasion of
the commencement of HBCUs Week, 1996.
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Title III programs are needed for one additional reason according
to a 2004 report by Thomas G Mortenson, the Senior Scholar at The Pell
Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. Title IIIB
programs are needed so that HBCUs can keep educating diverse students
at a time when the nation's flagship institutions are not doing a good
job. The Mortenson Report found that at this time when state public
higher education institutions should be doing more to enroll and
graduate traditionally underrepresented populations, because of their
growing numbers in the population, most of our flagship universities
are doing a grossly inadequate job of enrolling African Americans,
Hispanics, and American Indians.
Despite some recent progress, among the universities that Dr.
Mortenson found to be least engaged in enrolling underrepresented
minorities present in higher education in their states and most
segregated are: the University of Georgia, University of Mississippi at
Oxford, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, University of Delaware, University of Texas,
Austin, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. These are all states with
HBCUs. The Mortenson report goes further to conclude as follows:
As these state flagship universities disengage from the demographic
changes occurring in their states, they diminish their justification
for further state financial support for their operations. As flagships
increasingly focus on the affluent shrinking majority populations in
their states, then state political leaders should reallocate state
higher education investment resources toward those institutions and
programs that are serving these growing populations on which the state
futures depend.
To maximize social welfare and diminish the many divisions that
fracture our nation, federal resources devoted to broadening higher
education should also be reallocated. Institutions that are disengaged
from serving the rowing demographic groups on which country's future
depends should be suspended from further Title IV student financial aid
program eligibility. Institutions that are disengaged should be placed
on probation and challenged to engage or face suspension. And those
institutions that are reaching out to these growing demographic groups
should be strongly supported for the important work they are doing.
Moreover, many of these same state flagship universities that are
turning away from addressing demographic opportunities have accumulated
significant endowments (profits) that remain tax free: UT system
($8.7B), Univ of VA ($1.8B), Ohio State U ($1.2B) UNC CH ($1.1B) Penn
State U ($.900M), University of Illinois ($900M), University of
Delaware ($900M)
These public universities have accumulated huge profits but most
appear unable or unwilling to enroll their state shares of
underrepresented minority populations. They do not lack resources-they
lack will.
The Mortenson Report has public policy implications worthy of our
consideration. As we seek to invest more equitably and efficiently in
higher education, to prod higher education access and success, and to
focus on outcomes-based education, consideration should be given to
investing proportionately more in those institutions, like HBCUs, HSIs,
and AIHEC institutions that continue to enroll and graduate
disproportionate numbers of traditionally underserved students. This
approach would foster at least three important higher education goals:
(1) promoting access to postsecondary education; (2) containing college
costs and prices; and (3) fostering standards and accountability.
To enable Title IIIB to continue strengthening the nation's
premiere equal educational opportunity institutions and expanding
educational excellence, access and equity, the entire HBCU community is
united behind the following amendments to Title IIIB:
Revise section 324(d) of the Act to limit the award of
Title IIIB funds to HBCU s that meet the requirements of section 322(2)
and satisfy every element of the formula in section 326(f)(3).
Increase the authorization of appropriations in fiscal
year 2007 to $260 million for section 323 and to $75 million for
section 326 and ``such sums'' in the succeeding four fiscal years.
Retain the current law HBGI allocation formula for
distributing funds to all eligible historically black graduate and
professional schools and ``qualified graduate programs'', with a ``hold
harmless'' provision to prevent the reduction in any HBGI's prior year
award;
Add any newly eligible professional schools or ``qualified
graduate programs.'' Qualifying programs include:
Albany State University: Nursing Alcorn State University: Agronomy,
Animal Science, Biology, Computer Information Science, Rural Nursing.
Bowie State University: Computer Science, Family Nurse
Practitioner, Management Information Systems Grambling State
University: Nurse Practitioner Langston University: Physical Therapy
University of the District of Columbia School of Law.
Revise section 327(b) of the Act to clarify congressional
intent that eligible institutions have ten years to obligate Title IIIB
grant funds;
Revise section 322(4) of the Act to clarify that the
authority to determine areas in which Blacks are underrepresented
resides solely with the Secretary of Education, in consultation with
the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics and
the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics;
Authorize new activities including the creation or
improvement of facilities for Internet or other distance learning; the
acquisition of real property adjacent to the campus needed to construct
instructional facilities; general faculty support; etc.
Include a new technical assistance authorization for
institutions to use up to two percent of their Part B funds for
technical assistance purposes related to grant activities approved by
the Secretary of Education.
In addition to the above recommendations, the HBCU community and
the evolving community of predominantly black institutions stand united
behind an amendment to the Higher Education Act to include a new Title
III, Part A that would authorize a minimum grant of $250,000 to 2-or 4-
year institutions of higher education defined as Predominantly Black
Institutions (PBIs). This proposed amendment is an effort to expand
educational access to the growing segments of the American workforce.
The proposed PBI amendment is aligned with and proposes federal support
for PBIs comparable to that which is currently provided to Hispanic-
Serving Institutions under Title V Part A, Section 501 of the HEA where
funds are authorized to provide grants and related assistance to
Hispanic-serving institutions to enable such institutions to improve
and expand their capacity to serve Hispanic students. It is also
aligned with and would offer support for PBIs comparable to that which
is provided under Title III, Section 303, where funds for Indian Tribal
Colleges and Universities are authorized to enable such institutions to
improve and expand their capacity to serve Indian students.
The PBI amendment would greatly enhance the nation's ability to
make higher education available to all who are prepared and desirous of
attending college. In so doing, it would expand the nation's ability to
prepare more Americans to meet the demands of the labor force for more
highly trained, technological workers, and for a more diverse labor
force.
PBIs are located in service areas of high distress, high need, and
traditionally low-performing PK-12 systems. They are potent
educational, economic, social, and political resources for their
service areas. They are feeders of diverse students into four-year
institutions (in the case of two-year institutions), graduate and
professional schools, and into the labor force.
It is in the nation's interest to help ensure that all students who
are prepared and desirous of attaining a higher education are afforded
an opportunity to do so; and that higher education institutions that
are educating disproportionate percentages of low-income, first
generation, traditionally underserved students are strengthened.
Despite efforts to close the higher education attainment gap
between white students and racial and ethnic minorities, the gap
remains manifest. More affordable and more accessible, PBIs help to
close the gap between black students and white students enrolling in
and graduating from college.
Relative to other institutions of higher education, PBIs are under-
funded.
PBIs are different than Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs) in mission, history and, in some instances,
resource challenges. Similar to HBCUs, they are meeting vital higher
education needs for traditionally underrepresented students, a
disproportionate number of whom are black. Indeed, PBIs are meeting the
needs of more than 200,000 students each year. PBIs would be added to
HEA without jeopardizing the HBCU program and in a manner that would
withstand ``strict scrutiny.''
The proposed definition of a ``PBI'' is an institution with:
1000 full time students or FTE;
At least 50% of students are Pell Grant-eligible;
At least 50% of students are first generation college students;
At least 40% of enrolled students are Black American;
At least 25% of graduates enroll in an advanced degree program; and
At least 25% of students complete degree requirements in a
specified time period
The proposed use of race as just one factor among several others
suggests that the proposed new category of institutions would meet
constitutional muster. In Grutter v. Bollinger, a majority of the
Supreme Court Justices upheld the use of race as one of many factors
that may be considered in fashioning diversity initiatives in higher
education. The PBI provision would allow for the consideration of race
as one of several factors in determining an institution's eligibility
for inclusion in the proposed Title IIIA of the Higher Education Act.
Race would not be the only factor; and the proposed definition would be
consistent with the legislative scheme for the inclusion of HSIs and
Tribal Colleges and Universities. I am including as an appendix to this
testimony, a one-page briefing paper on this important amendment to
Title III.
The purpose of the Endowment Challenge Grant program is to help
traditionally under-funded institutions to grow their endowments, which
are essential to their survival and enhancement. For these institutions
to grow their endowments is increasingly important during this economic
downturn. Congress ceased providing direct funding for the program in
fiscal year 1995. Many NAFEO member institutions, especially small
private and public colleges, which serve large numbers of lower income
students, tend to be enrollment driven and have fewer wealthy alumni
than their historically white counterparts from which to secure large
gifts. The percentage of alumni from these institutions who give to
their alma maters is significantly smaller than the percentage of
alumni at their competitor institutions. Federal matching grants
present an attractive magnet to lure private sector involvement--namely
corporate and foundation contributions. Each Endowment Challenge Grant
must be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
The Challenge Grant Act Amendments of 1983 authorized matching
federal grants for small private and public colleges and universities
that qualified for Title III of the Higher Education Act. Subsequent
amendments to the law have allowed Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs), community and junior colleges, Hispanic-Serving
Institutions (HSIs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and other
minority-serving institutions to participate in the program.
The united HBCU community recommends establishing a two-tiered
match system: a 1:1 or 2:1 dollar match, with a five-year wait out
period for institutions in the 2:1 program. Allowing a 2:1 match would
allow institutions to pursue more aggressive endowment building
campaigns on their campuses.
Congress established the Historically Black College and University
(HBCU) Capital Financing program to provide HBCUs with resources for
the repair, renovation, or in exceptional circumstances, the
construction or acquisition of instructional, laboratory, residential
campus facilities; instructional equipment, research instrumentation,
or fixtures related to such facilities, and of any real property
underlying such facilities. Very few projects have been approved since
1992. As of May, 2007, only 12 financing projects, totaling an
estimated $180 million, had been approved since the program's
inception.
The Department of Education's preferred method of financing HBCU
Capital projects is to provide loans tied to a Department of Treasury-
based benchmark. This practice has resulted in increased costs to the
institution, including paperwork burdens and processing delays. To
strengthen this sorely needed program, the HBCU community recommends:
Expanding the purposes for which financing may be used to
include the acquisition of property adjacent to the campus;
Increasing the authorization of appropriations for the
HBCU Capital Financing program to $308,000;
Eliminating financing tied solely to the Treasury-bill
rate;
Reducing the paperwork burden for institutions and the
time between an institution's submission of its application to the time
for approval for financing; and
Eliminating the current requirement for cross
collateralization of capital.
The purpose of the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement
Program (MSEIP) is to increase minority representation in science and
technology by improving science and engineering programs at minority
institutions. Institutions of higher education may use MSEIP funds for
projects ranging from faculty development and improvement, curriculum
development and research capabilities.
The HBCU united community supports an increase in the authorization
of appropriations to $20 million and the creation of a new authority
that encourages consortia that include the Department of Energy's
regional laboratories, other federal agencies with science,
mathematics, engineering and technology missions or mandates, and
private sector companies or foundations related to health and
scientific research.
The final amendment we propose to Title III is for the
establishment of a new section that would create an HBCU Research,
Education and Technical Assistance Center with Endowed Chairs at the
accredited HBCU law centers. The Center would gather, maintain &
disseminate quantifiable, research-based data to sustain HBCUs, close
the achievement, performance, and retention gaps, and improve
educational outcomes. The endowed chairs would work with HBCUs in their
region to gather and present data necessary under the Program
Assessment Rating Tool (PART) to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the
Department of Education, state legislatures and other legislative,
regulatory, administrative, and judicial bodies, the outcomes from the
Title III investments in HBCUs. The Center and HBCU accredited law
schools would also gather and maintain data sufficient to support
strategic investments in HBCUs, and pilot test and identify best
practices in a number of critical areas including student retention at
HBCUs, best practices for closing the stark male, female enrollment gap
on HBCU campuses and the like.
The above recommendations will go a long ways toward strengthening
HBCUs and PBIs, their students, faculty, staff and facilities. To the
extent to which we as a nation strengthen HBCUs and PBIs, we will
strengthen a growing segment of the American workforce, strengthen our
families and communities, and make America strong.
Please give these recommendations your favorable consideration.
______
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you.
Dr. Vanegas.
STATEMENT OF OLIVIA VANEGAS-FUNCHEON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, TOHONO
O'ODHAM COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Buenas dias.
Chairman Hinojosa. Buenas dias.
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and
Congressman Grijalva. On behalf of the Donatem Community
College, I thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony
today.
I am here to testify on Title IIIA, Section 316, which
provides grants and related assistance to the Indian tribal
college and universities to enable such institutions to improve
and expand their capacity to serve Indian students.
It has been the dream of our nation, our Tohono O'odham
Nation, to build this college, and we are now one of the 35
tribally-controlled colleges. We are located in Salas, Arizona,
in the middle of the Saharan Desert, 60 miles southwest of the
city of Tucson. Since the start of the college, we have been
building the infrastructure. We have collaborated with the
community and been responsive to the educational needs of our
students who have not had the opportunity to go to college
because they live in remote villages.
By 2005--we were chartered in 1998, and by 2005 we became a
land grant institution and fully accredited by the Higher
Learning Commission. So it is like flying a plane while we are
building it.
As one of the previous presidents has said, the vision of
the college is twofold--to become the center of higher
education on the Tohono O'odham Nation, and also to have the
Tohono O'odham Nation students to participate--become
participants of the local, state, national, and global
communities.
The Nation lies on 75 miles of the Mexican-U.S. border. It
is geographically the largest--the second largest reservation
in Arizona. Eleven thousand of the 27,000 members of the Nation
live on the reservation. The rest live in nearby Tucson,
Phoenix, and other cities. Our Nation members--many of them
live at poverty level. The earn $6,000 less than other Arizona
tribes, and also less than half of the U.S. average.
The unemployment rate of the working people is 23 percent.
And of the discouraged workforce, it is 67 percent. So there is
a gap. At the lower--the bottom fifth percent of the
population, where many of our Tohono O'odham--the population of
Arizona, the bottom fifth, that income is one of the lowest in
the nation, and it continues to decrease, whereas the top fifth
of the Arizona households, the income has increased by 31
percent. So the poverty in the Tohono O'odham--for the Tohono
O'odham Nation is great.
Literacy and education levels are, again, one of the
poorest in the nation. When we look at the graduation rate of
our students, as far as diplomas, again, more than 50 percent--
less than 50 percent of our students are graduating from high
school, and so that begins the start of many of our issues with
education. We also have health problems. Diabetes is at the
highest rates. We have alcohol and drug abuse problems, and so
these are all the challenges and a really brief summary. All of
the detail is in my written testimony.
The education and institution challenges are faced by the
Tohono O'odham Community College. Ninety-five percent of our
students are American Indian, and most of them are Tohono
O'odham students.
Now, to get to Title III. Title III has helped the college
address many of the challenges mentioned above. The Tohono
O'odham Community College used Title III over the first year to
support the retention of students at Tohono O'odham Community
College. The goals of the project are to increase student
enrollment sufficient to ensure long-term financial viability
of the institution.
The second goal is to realize the vision and mission of the
college by connecting the unique academic needs of the science
and math curricula to the Tohono O'odham Hymda, which is our
way of life. The third goal is to provide basic skills
targeting the academic remediation needs of the students. And
the fourth is to develop a sponsor project program that
enhances TLCC's planning and development ability to implement,
evaluate, and ultimately institutionalize academic and support
programs and services and resources.
Chairman Hinojosa. Dr. Vanegas, I am going to yield an
additional two minutes for you to complete your presentation,
and also I assure you that your entire presentation will be
made part of the record.
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Okay. Thank you. Title III grant has
contributed to enhancement and integration of the science and
math courseworks to the people's way of life. The funding has
provided a state-of-the-art laboratory. We have hired
instructors in GED math and science. We have created a study
center for tutoring our students, and, of course, the sponsor
project that helps us gain more grants.
My recommendations are to first expand the authority of the
tribal college Title III program to oppose the establishment of
new Title III programs for non-tribal institutions; and to
continue the working relationship with a funding agency; and,
third, to--one of the biggest challenges is transportation
needs, to make that an allowable cost as far as the grants.
I urge you for these considerations of these--I urge the
consideration of these recommendations, and I thank you for the
opportunity to address you today.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Olivia Vanegas-Funcheon, President, Tohono
O'odham Community College
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of the
Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCC), one of the newest developing
tribal college, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony to
the to the U.S. House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher
Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness regarding the Higher
Education Act: Institutional Support for Colleges and Universities
Under Title III.
Introduction
The purpose of the legislation that established Title III-A, Sec.
316 is to ``provide grants and related assistance to Indian Tribal
Colleges and Universities to enable such institutions to improve and
expand their capacity to serve Indian students.''
To fulfill the dreams of generations of the Tohono O'odham Nation
members, the Tohono O'odham Nation Legislative Council established
Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCC)--one of the 35 tribally
controlled colleges and universities in the United States--in January
1998, as the official institution of higher education of the Tohono
O'odham Nation. The college is located in Sells, Arizona, the
administrative center of the Tohono O'odham Nation, approximately
sixty-miles southwest of the nearest off-reservation population center,
the city of Tucson.
Since the inception, the College achieved outstanding successes in
the development of its infrastructure, recruitment of highly qualified
and committed faculty and staff, involvement and collaboration with the
community, and responsiveness to meeting the educational needs and
desires of its students and of the Tohono O'odham Nation. By 2005, TOCC
was designated a land grant institution and achieved full accreditation
from the Higher Learning Commission.
The vision for TOCC is to become the Tohono O'odham Nation's center
for higher education. Assuming this role, the mission is two-fold. The
vision is to enhance the Tohono O'odham Nation's participation in the
local, state, national, and global communities.
The Tohono O'odham Nation, lying along 75 miles of the Mexico-US
border, is geographically the second largest reservation in Arizona--
the size of Connecticut--and today home to some 11,000 of the Tohono
O'odham Nation's 27,000 citizens. A large number of Tohono O'odham
members reside in Tucson, Phoenix, other nearby towns and cities, and
still farther distant. The Tohono O'odham Nation politically and
geographically consists of eleven units, known as districts.
Tohono O'odham Nation's 24,000 membership living in Arizona has a
median household income of $6,000 less per year than other Arizona
tribes and less than half the U.S. average. Official unemployment rate
is 23% of the total workforce. Because of the reservation's lack of
jobs, the Tohono O'odham Nation's statistics show a discouraged
unemployed rate of 67% of the workforce.
According to economist Marshall Vest, the income gap in Arizona is
growing faster than in any other state. About 900,000 Arizonans now
live below the poverty level, almost twice the number recorded in 1990.
The average income of the bottom fifth of the population, where many
Tohono O'odham Nation household income exist, is one of the nation's
lowest, $7,273 per year or lower in 1998. Adjusted for inflation, this
Arizona population has had income fall 15% in the decade from 1990-
2000. During the same period, the top fifth of Arizona households saw
income increase by 31 percent.
The 2000 Census estimated 13 percent of American families are
living in poverty. Yet in Arizona, 17% of the population--the 7th
highest percentage nationally--live in poverty. Despite the overall
poor standing of Arizona, over three and a half times as many Tohono
O'odham families (24%) live below the poverty line. While the
increasing income gap between rich and poor means fewer Arizona
families are occupying middle-class status, it also means that the
economic status of the vast majority of Tohono O'odham is further
sinking vis-a-vis the rest of the population.
Major determinants of economic status are literacy and education
levels. Associate degree graduates earn 30.6 percent more ($7000) per
year than high school graduates. Bachelor degree graduates earn 60.3
percent ($13,300) more than high school graduates. Tohono O'odham's
educational performance is among the poorest in the nation. Although
overall 65% of American Indians have a high school diploma or have
completed a GED, only 48% of the Tohono O'odham Nation's population has
done so. Furthermore, only 4.6% of Tohono O'odham's population has an
earned baccalaureate degree. In an average year, approximately 100
students graduate from K-12 public, Catholic, and BIA schools on and
off the reservation.
Tohono O'odham health problems in general are serious. The Tohono
O'odham have the country's highest Type II Diabetes rate. Especially
acute is the rate of Diabetic mothers. The U.S. has 25 diabetic mothers
per 1,000 live births. On the Tohono O'odham Nation, the rate is 79 per
1,000 births. Teenage pregnancy rates are 118 per 1000 persons, or 12%
of all women ages 15-19. At 9.1% of the total population, the Tohono
O'odham Nation's mortality rate for post-neo-natal fatalities is the
highest in the U.S. Neo-natal care is also a major problem. Three times
as many Tohono O'odham mothers are likely to drink during pregnancy
than in the U.S. population as a whole. Alcohol and drug abuse combined
with crime associated with such abuse, and factors such as early
mortality from vehicle accidents, are other serious problems that
negatively impact family life.
The acute economic and health problems confronting the Tohono
O'odham translate into inordinate educational and institutional
challenges faced by TOCC in carrying out its mission to enhance the
quality of life of the Tohono O'odham Nation.
The student body at TOCC continues to grow in number. For academic
year 2005-2006, the unduplicated head count and FTS (full-time student
equivalency) per semester were as follows: Fall 2005--286 students (151
FTSE), Spring 2006--215 students (149 FTSE); and Sumer 2006--150
students (60 FTSE). For Spring of 2006, gender distribution was 133
females and 82 males. Ninety-five percent of the student body are
American Indian or Alaskan Native, and the vast majority are members of
the Tohono O'odham Nation.
Title III
Title III helps the college address many of the challenges
mentioned above. The Tohono O'odham Community College used Title III
over the first year to support the retention of the students at TOCC.
The goals of the project are to
(1) Increase student enrollment sufficient to ensure the long-term
financial viability of the institution.
(2) Realize the Vision and Mission of the College by connecting the
unique academic needs of the science and math curricula to the Tohono
O'odham Himdag (Way of Life).
(3) Provide basic skills programs targeting the academic
remediation needs of students.
(4) Develop a sponsored projects program that enhances TOCC
planning and development ability to implement, evaluate, and ultimately
institutionalize academic and support programs, services, and
resources.
The Title III grant has contributed to the enhancement and
integration of the science and math coursework into the Himdag. The
funding has provided a state of the art science laboratory for research
opportunities and programs, hired math, science and GED instructors,
established a study center to provide tutoring and mentoring for
students enrolled in developmental coursework, increased student
enrollment in science and GED classes, established a sponsored projects
office to maintain good standing with granting agencies and increase
funding opportunities to support TOCC academic programs, student
services, and operations.
The grant has facilitated in bringing additional resources to TOCC.
TOCC submitted a proposal and was awarded, ``Everything in the Desert
Connects'' to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), under the
Instrumentation Program for Tribal Colleges and Universities. TOCC will
use these funds to purchase GIS/GPS, and remote sensing equipment,
accompanying necessary software for the purposes of enhancing,
educational experiences not only for TOCC students but also for
numerous tribal programs, while also impacting local farming and
ranching endeavors.
Now that the Title III laboratory is operational, the college had
12 students enrolled in an environmental biology course--a first--in
the summer semester. This increased enrollment for the environmental
biology course supports the conclusion that if the college built
laboratory facilities enrollment would increase. Student opinion
indicated that there is a need for the college to upgrade its
mathematical and science program with GIS/GPS equipment, calculators,
and software. The new lab facility is equipped with a wireless network
with which the new GIS/GPS lab would connect. As a result of Title III
grant, TOCC is able to offer a new state of the art science laboratory
that will invite similar grant programs, such as the Department of
Defense--Instrumentation Program for Tribal Colleges and Universities,
for continued contribution of additional resources to TOCC. Prior to
the new laboratory, TOCC had no formal hands-on laboratory facilities
such as the Biology/Chemistry laboratory.
The educational attainment for Tohono O'odham Nation students is
reported in the two school districts located on the reservation with
high school graduation rates of 39.7% and 55.0% for 2002-03.
Nevertheless, TOCC has served 3,490 students and graduated 195 students
with two-year associate degrees, certificates, and GEDs since the year
of 2000.
TOHONO O'ODHAM COMMUNITY COLLEGE AWARDS BY TERM
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Degree code 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Total
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AA...................................... 3 ....... 5 6 3 2 4 23
AAS..................................... 2 ....... 6 2 1 3 17 31
ABUS.................................... ....... ....... ....... 1 ....... ....... 2 3
AGS..................................... 3 1 3 ....... 1 1 ....... 9
CERT.................................... 8 14 4 2 7 7 12 54
GED..................................... 12 10 6 13 11 12 11 75
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
All awards........................ 28 25 24 24 23 25 46 195
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOCC's success is measured by the improvements the college has made
to students' lives. We know that culturally appropriate higher
education for our people works when we began to see the economic
benefits that will strengthen individuals, families, and community with
greater workforce skills, opportunities for leadership, financial
stability, employment opportunities close to home, and knowledge to
take care of the land. We know that culturally appropriate higher
education for our people works when we began to see the social benefits
that will impact families and communities with the ability to reduce
the social problems, preserve the culture, language, and traditions,
further educational opportunities, use better technology, and improve
Community programs
Recommendations
More than two dozen federally chartered tribal colleges and
universities are associated with educating Native Americans at the
postsecondary level. They get the vast majority of their support from
the federal government, receiving a total of nearly $100 million in
operating funds each year through the Labor Department's Bureau of
Indian Affairs, and a significantly smaller amount for programs and
facilities through the Education Department's Strengthening Tribally
Controlled Colleges and Universities program. As one of the newest
member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), we
recommend the following:
Expand and increase authority for the Tribal Colleges and
Universities' Title III Part A program. Attached is AIHEC's Summary of
Proposed Amendments to the Higher Education Act (110th Congress).
Oppose establishing a new HEA Title III Program for Native
American Serving, Non-tribal institutions.
Continue funding to build a strong working relationship
with the funding agency and to provide the necessary training/knowledge
on Title III programs for tribal colleges and universities.
Consider allowable costs for transportation needs for
students living in isolated and rural locations and for instructors who
travel to those distant locations to conduct classes.
On behalf of the Tohono O'odham Community College, one of the
newest members of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium
(AIHEC), I urge you to consider the recommendations put forward to you
today and I thank you for the opportunity to address you.
______
[Additional material submitted by Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon
follow:]
Prepared Statement of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium
(AIHEC)
The nation's Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), which
comprise the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC),
recommend that the language included in S.1614, as reported, from the
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in the last Congress
(109th Congress) that addresses the TCU Title III grant program be
included in the 110th Congress' reauthorization of the Higher Education
Act. The following is an explanation of the changes sought.
Title III: Institutional aid
Expand and increase authority for the Tribal Colleges and
Universities' Title III Part A program: Currently, Sec. 316 of Part A
specifically supports Tribal Colleges and Universities through two
separate competitive grants programs: 1) a development grants program
that awards 5-year grants, and 2) a single-year award program designed
specifically to address the critical construction and infrastructure
needs at tribal colleges. Changes to the current programs that would be
of great benefit to the TCUs include:
Formula Driven Program: Tribal Colleges and Universities
would clearly benefit from a formula approach to their Title III
development grants program, provided the formula reflects the needs of
these unique institutions and the intent of the Title III--
Strengthening Institutions program. Additionally, the TCUs are very
interested in retaining a portion of annually appropriated TCU Title
III program funding to continue the competitively awarded construction
grants program. Sec. 303 of S. 1614, as reported, includes language
that would accomplish this goal.
Justifications: Tribal Colleges and Universities operate
on shoestring budgets and many rely on a patchwork of competitive
grants for the financial resources to simply keep their doors open.
TCUs are the youngest and least developed institutions of higher
education in the nation. As such, they are the most in need of these
funds yet, they must struggle to submit competitive applications under
the arduous requirements and volume of Title III Part A grants. While,
many higher education institutions can and do spend thousands of
dollars on grant application preparation and submission. This is simply
not an option for TCUs. Another key factor is the limited size of the
pool of eligible applicants for the TCU program. Although new TCUs are
emerging, the pool is expected to remain below 45 institutions for the
foreseeable future. Creating a formula funded program would result in a
win-win situation. Current applications submitted for Title III Part A
competitive grants must have each of the required areas individually
judged by application reviewers, by converting this program to formula
funding, considerable administrative time and cost savings could be
realized by the Federal government.
While formula funding of the basic development grants has long been
sought by the TCUs, retaining the competitive construction grants
program that has been available to the TCUs through appropriations
language since fiscal year 2001 is also a priority.
Authorization of Appropriations: We are requesting a $35
million authorization for fiscal year 2008 and ``such sums'' for each
succeeding fiscal year. We are looking to increase funding to a level
adequate to continue to support those institutions currently eligible
to apply for funding under the TCU program as well as to accommodate
emerging TCUs. These new TCUs will further expand access to quality
higher education opportunities for American Indian people.
______
------
------
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you. I want to add to your
presentation, Ms. Vanegas, that Congressman Grijalva, together
with Congressman Dale Kilby, have championed, both working
together with me, the higher education opportunities for all
tribally controlled colleges and universities in the entire
United States.
And we welcome representatives from those colleges and
universities to come more often to Washington, so that we can
continue this dialogue that we are having today, so that we can
try to increase the federal investment in those colleges and
universities.
And, Dr. Earvin, I must say that the Congressman who sits
on the Education Committee with me and works closely with me,
Dale--not Dale, but Danny Davis, is a strong champion for those
HBCU colleges and universities and has raised the level of
awareness of members of Congress to the growing predominantly
black student colleges and universities who also are asking for
our assistance, and that we are going to give that strong
consideration as we move forward in this reuthorization of
higher education.
I am going to begin with the first questions. And, Dr.
Kinslow, your recruitment programs entitled College Connections
appear to be the reason for such tremendous student growth in
your district. Would you please give us some brief highlights
of the program? And include, please, why this college system,
which has 60 percent Hispanic students in this area, has not
been able to get the designation of HSI, so that you could
participate in federal investment as other HSIs throughout the
country?
Mr. Kinslow. Okay. Thank you. I will take the latter part
of your question first, which is why we have not attained HSI
status up to now. Our district started in a very unusual
manner. We were born from the AISD school system, and without a
local tax base, and so for the first many years of our
college's history we operated in abandoned high school
facilities and low-cost rental properties that we were able to
achieve. So we had, up until 1985, no local revenue stream
through local taxes to help us cope with growth.
And because of that, we were behind the curve in terms of
facilities to be able to meet the capacity before us for
growth, and so we have only, really through the last 15 years,
had a very ambitious building program. We now have seven
comprehensive campuses that we own.
But instructional capacity remain a big issue in our
district, and so for us we have the challenge of serving,
again, a very large geographic area about the size of New
Jersey. And out of 30 independent school districts that
comprised that territory, only four are actually in-district
tax-paying members for the community college.
So our capacity issues are linked very strongly to our need
to expand the actual size of our taxing district and----
Chairman Hinojosa. Do you have any bonds that are possibly
under consideration for additional funding for buildings?
Mr. Kinslow. Yes. In fact, we just opened a new campus this
past fall, the South Austin Campus, which has a very large
population of Hispanic and African-American students, opened
that campus with 2,300 students. We also just opened a new
building, which more than doubles the instructional capacity at
our Cypress Creek campus.
We are also very excited, you may have heard on the news
today, that the Round Rock independent school district has
announced its pursuit of annexation into our district. So we
have had a broader master plan focus on facilities and capacity
planning aligned with our State's closing the gaps enrollment
target.
Chairman Hinojosa. Since your seven campuses are nearing
capacity, as you are saying, and you project a need for
additional faculty and staff as well as funding for
infrastructure, how important will Title III funds be in
helping the district's future growth?
Mr. Kinslow. It is very important. We have to take
advantage of all of the opportunities to better align the
planning, aligned with the growth projections, not only in
Austin, but throughout this region. And because we will always
be an institution that has some limitations in terms of our
taxing capacity, we operate on a much leaner budget than is
typical of urban community college districts.
So we view Title III and Title V as tremendous
opportunities for us. You asked about the College Connection
Program. That is largely responsible for our enrollment growth,
but we have also done other things as a district. We have
looked, again, at how can our district plan for the expansion
of facilities, as you are pointing out, over a period of time.
And our board has adopted a long-term master plan that
strategically----
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you. We will come back to you
later on.
Mr. Kinslow. Thank you.
Chairman Hinojosa. Mr. Scott, most of the targeted
institutions always request additional funds for
infrastructure, yet you reported that to a lesser extent
grantees reporting using grant funds to improve their fiscal
stability. Should the institutions place a higher priority on
fiscal stability instead of recruiting students and helping
them with what Congressman Grijalva said was so important in
his State, and that is the accessibility and affordability for
those students?
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, as you know, the Title III and
Title V provide institutions with a broad range of flexibility,
so I think it will be a policy decision as to whether you will
continue to provide that range of flexibilities. I think given
the limited federal resources that are available for Title III
and Title V programs, though, it is important that grantee
institutions continue to demonstrate results, and that they are
effectively and efficiently using the funds that they received.
I think as we point out, it is appropriate that they
continue to make and demonstrate progress in the areas of
improving institutional management and improvement fiscal
stability. And those are two areas that the Department of
Education is currently studying.
Chairman Hinojosa. One of the times you appeared before
Congress in Washington, you reported that in 2004 GAO
recommended that the Department of Education report better
monitoring and assistance to institutions. Why haven't they
implemented those recommendations more fully?
Mr. Scott. Well, the Department has made some progress, as
we say in our statement today, in these areas. I guess as I
said in my oral statement, though, it is important that they
continue to demonstrate a commitment to continual improvement
in this area. It has been three years since that prior GAO
report, and, as we have recently spoke with them, it is very
clear that while they have made some progress they continue to
need to take steps to fully implement the recommendations that
we previously made.
Chairman Hinojosa. I am going to yield myself another two
minutes, because I wanted to ask Dr. Earvin a question. Your
national institutions earned lower costs in both public and
public sector. However, we are now faced with rising college
costs throughout the country. Does your institution have a
counseling program focused on reducing the debt burden of
college students?
Mr. Earvin. Yes, we do. That is one of the key components
of our financial aid program, both at the outset of the
students' matriculation throughout his or her studies, and then
again at each time a loan may be acquired to continue the
process. We also have exit counseling to make sure that
students are apprised of the information and are fully
knowledge of what their options are.
Further, we work closely with students through our
financial aid office and our counseling office to make sure
that the student has explored all those options that are
available for support for his or her education that would not
include the borrowing of funds.
Chairman Hinojosa. When was the last time that you all
brought a financial literacy education program specialist to
your campus to help students and parents?
Mr. Earvin. Last semester.
Chairman Hinojosa. Excellent. Well, that is definitely one
that is growing. And I happen to be Co-Chairman of the
Financial Literacy Education Caucus, and we have grown to over
70 members in Congress with that. But what is important is the
Jumpstart Program, which is a coalition of banks and
government-secured entities like Sallie Mae, Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac, as well as the Federal Reserve and the U.S.
Treasury are all part of the coalition.
And they are promoting those in eight languages, so that we
are sure to also address student--I mean, the parents, and that
they can better understand that the students can indeed borrow
money and pay it back after they got their associate degree or
their bachelor's degree.
I am going to yield to my fellow colleague here,
Congressman Grijalva, for his questions.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And before I start the questions, as a commentary, Dr.
Earvin, you couldn't have a better advocate than Danny Davis on
that committee and in Congress. He explained to me early on in
the process--I happened to sit next to him, so I have to get
explained to a lot. [Laughter.]
The issue of predominantly black colleges, and we shouldn't
get--and it why it was--not to get into a situation, your
funding issue in 323 being the point. That you shouldn't get in
the situation of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and I thought that
was--and he continues to advocate that, and you couldn't have a
better person----
Mr. Earvin. Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva [continuing]. Working that side.
Dr. Kinslow, let me just--we are working at the same time,
and I think it is a good time to be working on this
reauthorization while we are working on the reauthorization of
No Child Left Behind. There is a connection, so I don't think
we speak about it often enough, but there is a very strong one.
And one of the things that I was impressed, and you can
expand just a little bit, ACC's summer youth programs that
are--one of the areas that I am kind of focusing in on No Child
Left Behind is the middle schools. I think it has kind of been
a forgotten land out there in this whole process. But your
outreach efforts, the awareness, this is what college can be
about. Could you just expand a little bit both--not so much
what programmatically you are doing, but what the reception has
been from families, staff, and kids?
Mr. Kinslow. It has been very positive. We have taken the
approach that our college wants to be a leader in the P16
reform efforts, and so we think a lot of the success of the
bridge programs is rooted in sustained quality partnerships
with all of the independent school districts in the region.
What we did this summer was to bring together within our
institution a broader group of people to focus on all of the
different initiatives that we already had in place and said,
``How can we ramp that economy of scale up to impact more
people and reach more?'' And so we brought together groups like
our traditional outreach ambassadors with our early college
start and college connection folks, with our cashiers, our
accounts payable people, anybody that can touch a student in
any way and said, ``How can we take all of these programs and
weave a stronger tapestry?''
We looked specifically at elementary and middle schools
with high proportions of minority students and high proportions
of economically disadvantaged families. What we are doing this
summer is more of those programs than we have done in the past,
larger numbers, but we have also added components, for
instance, for parents, where we are trying to also reach that
population and provide services to them that help them
understand things they can do at home to encourage their kids
to think of themselves as college worthy, college able.
And we are also looking at ways that we are going to expand
the outreach also to those parents. That is another population
group that is typically underemployed as well, and so the
response has been very good throughout the area. And, again, it
is taking it out to the community rather than waiting for them
to come to our doors.
Mr. Grijalva. If you wouldn't mind down the road soon to
submit to the committee a program outline, I think that would
be very important.
Mr. Kinslow. Love to do that.
Mr. Grijalva. In Arizona, unfortunately, we have a State
law that cuts out opportunity for young people that have
successfully finished high school, done well, didn't get in
trouble, but because of some choices their parents made in
terms of coming to this country, they are caught in this limbo.
And so they have no access, because they have no financial
assistance, and we just talked about affordability being key to
this whole process of getting kids--getting young--not just
kids, community college is about all ages.
So you have this group, in terms of recruitment, in terms
of enrollment, how does that affect you if you have the same
situation that we have? In Arizona, 11,000 students will not be
eligible? So I don't know what the figures could be here.
Mr. Kinslow. That is a factor that affects use at times. In
Texas, children of adults who have come to this country----
Mr. Grijalva. Undocumented?
Mr. Kinslow [continuing]. Undocumented workers are able to
quality for the in-state tuition rate. That is still extremely
expensive. One of the things that we found, too, in going out
with our outreach efforts is that many times families, as you
are describing, are reluctant to provide or take advantage----
Mr. Grijalva. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Kinslow [continuing]. Of the financial aid counseling,
the scholarship counseling, because they are afraid that that
will lead to a problem related to their residency and their
ability to stay here. And so it is something that we try to
reassure people that we are going to follow the laws, but that
we are going to--that there are options for students. We are
also trying in our region to expand private giving to assist
students.
Mr. Grijalva. Mr. Hinojosa is going to gavel me in a
second, but----
[Laughter.]
Yes, I appreciate that, and that is why I think while this
immigration debate rages, divisive, ugly, rages across this
country, many of us, including the----
Chairman Hinojosa. Mr. Grijalva, if I may interrupt you, I
will yield another two or three minutes to you, provided----
Mr. Grijalva. One minute.
Chairman Hinojosa [continuing]. Provided that you allow me
the point of personal privilege of introducing some VIPs who
are here in our audience. And I will start first with all of
the college students that walked in a few minutes ago. Would
you please stand and be recognized? [Applause.]
I am delighted to see you here in the audience and to hear
this Congressional hearing. And I also want to take the
opportunity of introducing--acknowledging the presence of
Austin Mayor Will Wynn, who has also been with us, as well as
the College ACC Board Member Veronica Rivera, and also would
like to say that the Commissioner of Higher Education
Coordinating Board--Ray, would you please stand up and let us
applaud all of you for being here today. [Applause.]
After the questioning, I am going to invite the
Commissioner of Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to
make statement, because he represents all of the colleges and
universities in our great State of Texas, and I think that it
will be a wonderful opportunity for us to add to the record his
statement, because he is certainly the general with the most
stars on his shoulder in higher education. And we thank you for
coming to this hearing.
Mr. Grijalva, you may continue.
Mr. Grijalva. One minute, and I think that is why the
urgency, despite all that is going on in immigration and the
debate that is raging right now, and will continue to rage for
the foreseeable future. That is why we--nothing is accomplished
this year in terms of education, because the Dream Act can be
enacted, so that we can extend that opportunity to a whole
bunch of young people that deserve it and earned it. But
because of an involuntary choice on their part, they are
trapped.
Mr. Kinslow. Exactly.
Mr. Grijalva. I yield back.
Mr. Kinslow. Thank you.
Chairman Hinojosa. My first question to Ms. Olivia Vanegas,
your target population, as you indicated in your presentation,
is low income, and Arizona is experiencing around 900,000
people living below poverty level. This question may not be
necessary, but tell us, how does your institution keep college
costs at a minimum in order to provide much needed
opportunities for higher ed?
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Well, our tuition is very low for one
thing, and our students--repeat the question again. I am sorry.
Chairman Hinojosa. How do you keep college costs at a
minimum in order to provide an opportunity to higher education
to those you represent?
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Yes. It is a challenge, definitely,
but we do--for instance, the biggest challenge is hiring
people. The salaries are hard--the competition is high, and so
it is a challenge. But we do manage the money very well. We
also don't provide all of the--we do not have all of the
facilities that, you know, a college should have, but we
definitely do--we wear many hats, each of our faculty and
staff.
So we get full use of them, and so as far as keeping the
cost down we definitely, you know, do do that. And as far as
all of the physical, such as transportation vehicles, and all
of that, we are still in need of the----
Chairman Hinojosa. We will try to help you in this
reauthorization act. I want to proceed and ask you a question,
because last week while we were in session I was visited by the
National Administrator of NASA, and he was talking about the
acute shortage that we have of engineers and mathematicians and
scientists. And he was asking if we could increase our
financial investment in trying to recruit minority students,
including Native Americans.
So I am very supportive of the new stem emphasis for
enhancing student careers, because there is a larger pot of
money available to do that. How has your Title III project
allowed you to do this in your cultural context?
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Well, definitely, it is available.
The lab--we have as science lab available there at home, close
to our students. They don't have to travel to Tucson or some
other college to get that exposure to science and math. But we
also do do a lot of outreach at the lower levels.
We have bridge programs during the summer for our lower
grade levels, and fifth grade, and we also are working with the
University of Arizona, where we have faculty from--or students
that are interns coming to learn how to teach in the college
environment. But, again, we are working towards enriching that
stem program.
So we have had some very good faculty members. They are
committed to the students, and they work with the community in
the community. And one example is we just received equipment
for GIS, which is very much the study of the land. We have a
vast amount of land, and so that--most of our teaching needs to
be relevant to the environment that we are in, so----
Chairman Hinojosa. Well, if I may interrupt you----
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Yes.
Chairman Hinojosa [continuing]. You earlier talked about
the great need to provide the transportation costs for your
students. Have you considered investing more in distance
education?
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. Yes. And that is another plan that we
have. We definitely want to create a media center. One of the--
we have two sites that we are building the campus on--on the
west side, which is most of the remote areas, we want to build
a media center and also with that an entrepreneur--combination
of entrepreneur and media center, so that all of the
surrounding villages have access to not only the technology but
definitely all of the learning environment.
And then, also, with that to build the economic base in the
area, because the community has for many years been very
supportive of building the economic corridor right in that
stretch. But the basis of stem will lead to many careers. Right
now, many of--like our nursing home is understaffed. We need
nurses. Our GIS, many of the Planning Department for the
Nation, many of them are older, and they will soon retire, so
we need to replace them.
So, yes, the facilities will definitely increase the--or
with the remoteness of the satellite campus, and the
technology, the distance learning, we can reach many of our
students that are out there.
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you. We want to work with you and
see how we can help you achieve those goals, and to help
students access higher education.
I am going to have to move on, because time is running out
on us. I want to also take advantage of this opportunity to
recognize and acknowledge the presence of two other Board
members who are present, Alan Kaplan, Board Member of ACC, and
Dr. James Hill, Huston-Tillotson University Board Member. Would
you please stand and be recognized? [Applause.]
Thank you.
Congressman Grijalva, you may proceed.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Earvin, let me--I think in your testimony you speak to
the lack of federal investment in the capital financing
projects at historically black colleges and universities with
regard to those institutions. In your particular institution,
what capital financing have you received since, say, '92?
Mr. Earvin. We have not participated in that program. One
of the main reasons why we have not is because the requirements
for our participation are so onerous that we found not in our
best interest to pursue them. Further, the provisions of the
program that share the responsibility for institutions that may
not be able to maintain their financial responsibilities is
shared among all of the institutions. And given that, we have
opted not to do that, not to participate.
Mr. Grijalva. Yes. I asked the question because I think in
the foreseeable future that the goal of competitiveness is
going to require the kinds of facilities that bring
institutions to that level. We saw it today on the tour, you
know, just on the health side here, that you have to have the
best and the up to date. And so I asked that question because I
think that is critical in the future, and there might be
something we can do regarding that.
Mr. Earvin. I think if we could relax or modify some of the
rules under which that program operates there would be greater
participation and that we could still have the same level of
accountability. We are looking--at my own institution at ways
of expanding our physical plant and have looked at a number of
means of financing that, and the Capital Finance Program was
not one that ended on the favorable list. So I think that is
the things that we recommend in way of amendments that would
assist us.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. And this is kind of a general
question for both Ms. Funcheon and Dr. Kinslow, and it has to
do with--we are having a hearing in No Child Left Behind about
high schools and the staggering statistic that something like
53 percent of the dropouts in this nation are concentrated in
15 percent of our high schools. I never heard that before, but
we do have and continue to have, especially in our affected
communities, a significant dropout rate.
And so let us talk about retrieval a little bit, GED, and
how that interrelates with the community. And your experience--
and in Indian country, that dropout rate is staggering, as you
well know. And so both your perspectives on that probably would
be it for me.
Mr. Kinslow. Okay. Thank you. In all of our planning, we
have tried to look at the issues that are before us regionally
in Texas as not solvable exclusively from a concentration on
independent school district reform, which is where most of the
research right now appears to be focused, but also saying that
we have to be highly focused on looking at the adult population
as well, the ones that either dropped out or stopped out, or
for whatever reason need to be enticed into higher education.
One thing that we have done with our school is, one, we
provide funding for adult education about the level of just
state and federal grants. So our institution provides about
$1.1 million of our local monies to assist us in being able to
expand adult ed/GED----
Mr. Grijalva. Okay.
Mr. Kinslow [continuing]. Kind of outreach. The other is
that we took our very successful college connection program
that has been paying off high yields of increased high school
graduates coming to us, and modified that program and said,
``Let us look at our own populations of GED students and adult
ed students.'' So we have a modified version of that program.
Out of our last group of graduating GED students, 56
percent of them are now today enrolled in college credit
courses as a result of that outreach. So we think that
sometimes it is, again, back to that issue of aligning all of
the things that we are doing within our own institutions to a
higher purpose of saying we can reach more.
Mr. Grijalva. If you wouldn't mind.
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon. I would sum it up with we have a very
large scope of work. We work at the very start, the younger
students. GED, we have increased the number of GED instructors,
so that they can travel out to the villages. We also offer pre-
college courses. There is a lot of adults that never had the
opportunity to either graduate from high school, and they have
had to relearn how to go to school again.
So we have a lot of--we have a--we are doing an
experimental pilot program where--it is Prep 101, and it is
just to prepare the students, the older students and the
younger students, so that they can take college courses. And
then, we offer our two-year college courses.
And then, beyond that, we have three big grants to also
increase the number of Native American teachers, and that has
been done in collaboration with the University of Arizona, a
total of--the latest three is 51--for 51 teachers or
administrators. And we have had two other grants before that
one for 20, and one for 12, so we have been graduating
teachers.
It is important--one of the things that--in the high
schools is we have to have quality teachers. What we are
missing is science teachers, technology teachers. There are
teachers out there trying to do that work that is not their
field. So we definitely need teachers.
So the college has a very broad scope of work. That is why
I said we wear many hats in trying to----
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you.
Ms. Vanegas-Funcheon [continuing]. Accomplish all of that.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. And I think the broad scope for
community college is it is--you know, for me, they are the most
accessible and nearest to a community that can react the
quickest to--as changes happen in a community. And community
colleges have a tremendous responsibility, and part of it is to
deal with the dysfunction in the pipeline, whether it is
dropout, remediation, adult basic education, but it is probably
one of the few institutions that can--or the only one that can
provide that.
Appreciate it very much, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hinojosa. I am very pleased that the issue of
college student loans has surfaced here in the last two months
in Washington, and that many of those who provide monies for
student college loans have come together last week and agreed
to follow the recommendations of Congress and the gentleman
from New York--Cuomo--in accepting the Code of Ethics that has
been recommended, and that we can be able to restore the
integrity of that program, which is so important that has grown
to over $85 million, one that is so necessary to the minority
community in order to help our students go to college.
And I am going to continue to work closely with Chairman of
the whole committee, George Miller, to be sure that we get all
this done as we look forward to concluding the Higher Education
Act reauthorization, hopefully in October.
And with that, I am going to ask unanimous consent to put
into the record two statements that have been presented here by
people in the audience. One is the statement by Sue McMillin,
President and CEO of the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan
Corporation, and I also ask that the second document, which was
presented by the Texas Association of Student Financial Aid
Administrators, the statement by Kathy Bassham, President of
the Texas Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
[The prepared statement of Sue McMillin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Sue McMillin, President and CEO, Texas Guaranteed
Student Loan Corporation (TG)
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee- Welcome to Texas and
to the heart of our great state--Austin.
Thank you allowing me to enter this statement into the record
today. My statement focuses on a report TG completed for, and at the
request of, the recently completed 80th Texas Legislature concerning
financial barriers to postsecondary education.
While this hearing concerns Title III--Institutional Aid and Title
V--Developing Institutions of the Higher Education Act, the provision
of adequate student financial aid is a crucial, if not, the most
important, factor in ensuring academically prepared and informed
students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are able to
attend, persist, and graduate from college.
Therefore, the findings and recommendations included in Ready,
willing and unable: How financial barriers obstruct bachelor-degree
attainment in Texas, while applicable to the general topic of financial
access to postsecondary education, also are relevant to the topic of
today's hearing. This report was used widely as a resource during the
recently completed state legislative session and was cited on the floor
of the U.S. House of Representatives during the consideration of HR 5--
the College Student Loan Relief Act.
The United States is losing high-paying jobs to countries that
produce a more reliable supply of college graduates in math and
science. Texas faces its own economic slowdown if it is unable to
graduate more students with bachelor's degrees. The state has been
addressing many of the obstacles students face in earning a four-year
degree. Outreach efforts and public relations campaigns have encouraged
students to consider going to college, while changes in curriculum have
produced a much larger pool of college-ready high school graduates.
TEXAS Grants have made college more affordable, but due to projected
funding shortfalls, the program's reach is limited and net prices
remain high, undermining many of these well-intentioned college
promotion efforts.
Ready, willing, and unable looks at the barriers preventing college
qualified Texas students from completing college and the extent to
which this failure is due to financial barriers.
Major findings
An estimated 47,000 bachelor's degrees may be lost annually in
Texas due to financial barriers. This represents the number of college-
qualified, low-, moderate-, and middle-income students among 2004 Texas
high school graduates who could have earned a bachelor's degree if they
were able to go to college at the same rates as their higher-income
classmates.
The Texas enrollment rate for economically disadvantaged college-
prepared high school graduates was 20 percent less than their equally
qualified but financially secure peers.
Other key findings
Academic preparedness
Texas high schools are graduating both more students and more
college-qualified students than ever before.
Between 1996 and 2004, the percentage of students who graduated
from high school increased 10 percentage points to 85 percent.
The percentage of high school graduates who completed the
Recommended or Distinguished high school curriculum increased even more
dramatically from 39 percent of graduates in 2000 to 68 percent of
graduates in 2004.
Price of education
Although total expenses at public four-year Texas schools are
slightly less than the national average, the median family income in
Texas is a full 10 percent lower than the national median.
During the 2003-2004 academic year, students at Texas four-year
public schools faced a median net price of $12,345, and two-year school
enrollees encountered a median net price of $7,114. At four-year
private colleges, students were confronted with a median net price of
$18,182. Net price, which is the total cost of attendance minus grant
and scholarship aid, must be paid through savings, income, or loans.
The median family income in Texas was $49,769 in 2005.
Financial aid
Only nine percent of Texas undergraduates received any state grant
aid in AY 2003-2004 and loans to students represent two-thirds of all
student aid in Texas.
The average Federal Pell Grant award in Texas has grown only
moderately from $2,035 in AY 2000-2001 to $2,501 in AY 2004-2005.
Texas students rely on student loans at a rate more than 15% higher
than the national average.
Ninety-six percent of these loans were made under the Federal
Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) with a Median Borrower
Indebtedness (MBI) of $8,893 in FY 2005.
Other risk factors
Financial obstacles exacerbate the negative effects of other risk
factors on degree attainment. Seventy-five percent of Texas
undergraduates have at least one of seven risk factors identified by
the U.S. Department of Education.
The average of Texas undergraduates who have at least one risk
factor is five percentage points higher than the national average. Some
factors include delaying college enrollment, attending part time, and
working full time while enrolled.
Seventy-five percent of Texas undergraduates work while in school
and 35 percent work full time. After six years, 52 percent of
undergraduates who work full time will likely leave college without a
degree.
Higher education can produce well-educated, highly skilled citizens
who can make Texas a safer, more financially secure place to live. To
accomplish this goal, college must be made accessible to capable, well-
prepared students regardless of the level of their parents' income.
TG's Support of Title III and Hispanic-Serving Institutions
Beyond our resources in research, TG has actively supported the
work of Title III and Title V institutions. Our work spans pre-college
outreach, default prevention and debt management, and student
retention. Specifically, TG created a Hispanic Higher Education
Initiative and supports Texas Historically Black Colleges and
Universities Default Management Consortium.
As a part of these activities, TG has established new partnerships
with two national Latino-based organizations with the goal of working
collaboratively to increase postsecondary education access and success
among Hispanics. These organizations include Excelencia in Education
and the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE).
Moreover, TG provides need-based financial aid through the Charley
Wootan Grant Program and the TG Public Benefit Grant Program to help
students from low-and moderate incomes families afford postsecondary
education.
TG has established three areas of focus for efforts related to the
Hispanic Higher Education Initiative: educational partnerships,
competitive grants, and need-based aid.
Educational alliances
Two new educational organizations will add to the strength of TG's
existing partnerships in serving the needs of Latino students and
families:
Excelencia in Education, received a TG grant to conduct a
comprehensive institutional assessment and best-practices plan based on
the work of six Texas-based HSIs: The University of Texas--Pan
American, South Texas College, The University of Texas at Brownsville,
Texas Southmost College, The University of Texas at El Paso, and El
Paso Community College.
The partnership will involve teams of senior-level administrators
at each of the HSIs. TG will work with the organization throughout the
assessment process and will make available the findings and
recommendations that result. The project already has seen success as
reflected by the level of collaboration among campus leaders and their
desire to invite two additional border HSIs, Texas A&M International
University and Laredo Community College, to become full participants of
this project.
AAHHE received a TG grant to conduct the first-of-its-kind Hispanic
Student Retention Institute, produce several scholarly and best-
practices research papers on Hispanics in higher education, and provide
fellowships for graduate students to participate in AAHHE efforts and
discussions.
Competitive grants and need-based aid
TG's Public Benefit Grant Program--our philanthropic program--has
awarded $5 million over two fiscal years to 55 institutions and
community-based organizations. In FY 2007 alone, nearly $2 million was
awarded to HSIs and other organizations that intend to provide
outreach, student retention, and grant aid primarily to Hispanics.
Our public benefit program was established as a part of TG's
mission to enhance postsecondary education access, persistence, and
retention as a part of our state legislative mandate. The program is
offered on a case-neutral basis, with awards being made through a
merit-based process and is never operated in a manner to obtain or
encourage FFELP business for TG.
In addition, last year TG award approximately $210,000 in Charley
Wootan Grants to an estimated 21 Hispanic-serving Institutions for the
current academic year.
With respect to HBCUs, TG has focused its support of Texas' eight
HBCUs in the areas of student loan delinquency and default prevention.
TG has provide grant funding, as authorized under section 422(h) of the
Higher Education Act, to seven HBCUs to support their engagement of
Independent Third Party Consultants in default prevention. These HBCUs
created the Texas HBCU Default Management Consortium, which works with
TG to provide members with training efforts and venues for sharing best
practices.
In 2001, the consortium produced a report titled Breaking New
Ground, which describes a model encompassing effective management
partnerships and default aversion strategies/best practices to lower
default rates and maintain academic persistence and retention of
student borrowers. This is an ongoing enterprise which continues to
this day.
Conclusion
TG continues to use its success as the Texas FFELP designated
guarantor and administrator to support other initiatives and programs
designed to increase the participation of historically underrepresented
populations in postsecondary education. We strongly believe that this
is a part of our mission.
As such I strongly urge the Subcommittee, as you proceed to develop
your recommendations for the reauthorization of the HEA, to recognize
the important contributions of the FFELP, and the guarantors, lenders,
and schools that it includes, to supporting programs that benefit
students, families, and, ultimately, society.
I also urge the Subcommittee to do all it can to revitalize the
need-based Title IV programs along the lines recommended by the Federal
Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance in its 2006 report
Mortgaging Our Future: How Financial Barriers To College Undercut
America's Global Competitiveness.
Again, thank you Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to submit this
statement to you today. I, and my staff, will be pleased to provide the
subcommittee with additional information on these and other relevant
issues affecting student access to, and successful completion from,
postsecondary education as the reauthorization of the HEA continues.
______
[The prepared statement of Kathy Bassham follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kathy Bassham, President, Texas Association of
Student Financial Aid Administrators (TASFAA)
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee--Welcome to Texas.
My name is Kathy Bassham. I am Director of Student Financial Aid at
Weatherford College in Weatherford, Texas. I am also the current
President of the Texas Association of Student Financial Aid
Administrators (TASFAA). TASFAA is a voluntary organization composed of
student financial aid professionals from virtually all of Texas'
postsecondary educational institutions.
All of Texas Title III and Title V institutions are represented in
TASFAA and TASFAA recognizes the crucial role these institutions play
in insuring postsecondary educational opportunities are available to
those populations that have been historically underrepresented in our
colleges and universities.
We commend you, Mr. Chairman for successfully advocating the
implementation of Title V into the Higher Education Act and building
upon it throughout your tenure in the congress up to your authorship
and introduction of HR 451 and sponsorship of S 565--The Next
Generation Hispanic-Serving Institutions Act. We support this
legislation and invite you to use TASFAA as a resource to insure
passage of this legislation.
As a student financial aid association, TASFAA believes
passionately that the provision of adequate student financial aid is a
crucial, if not, the most important, factor in ensuring academically
prepared and informed students from economically disadvantaged
backgrounds are able to attend, persist, and graduate from college.
This is especially true in Texas, in which the demographics tell us
that before the middle of the century, the state's population will be
primarily Hispanic and without adequate student financial aid, many of
these children will not obtain a college education and the social and
economic well-being of the State will suffer as a result.
The Texas Legislature commissioned a report in 2005 to be submitted
to the 80th Texas Legislature in 2007 on the topic of the demand for
student financial aid in Texas.
The findings and recommendations included in Ready, Willing &
Unable, published by the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation, are
relevant to the topic of today's hearing, and, go to the whole thrust
of the direction of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act,
e.g., enhancing college affordability, the provision of information,
simplification of the application and delivery system, etc.
The report looks at the barriers preventing college qualified Texas
students from completing college and the extent to which this failure
is due to financial barriers.
The report finds that 47,000 bachelor's degrees may be lost
annually in Texas due to financial barriers; Texas' enrollment rate for
economically disadvantaged college-prepared high school graduates was
20 percent less than their equally qualified but financially secure
peers; Texas high schools are graduating both more students and more
college-qualified students than ever before; although total expenses at
public four-year Texas schools are slightly less than the national
average, the median family income in Texas is a full 10 percent lower
than the national median; only nine percent of Texas undergraduates
received any state grant aid in AY 2003-2004 and loans to students
represent two-thirds of all student aid in Texas; financial obstacles
exacerbate the negative effects of other risk factors on degree
attainment; seventy-five percent of Texas undergraduates have at least
one of seven risk factors identified by the U.S. Department of
Education: while much has been done by state and federal policymakers
to improve high school academic preparedness and outreach and awareness
efforts, much still needs to be done to adequately fund need-based
student financial aid.
Mr. Chairman, as your Subcommittee continues to receive input and
develop reauthorization legislation, TASFA urges you to consider the
impact of the current Title IV student financial aid programs in
providing access to postsecondary education. Texas, unfortunately, is
far more reliant on these programs than most other states, and more so
than the other 10 most populous states. We recognize that we have much
to do at the state level if we are to get serious about CLOSING THE
GAPS.
However, the reality is that more than 85% of the direct student
financial aid awarded annually to Texas postsecondary education
students comes from the federal programs, and two-thirds of this
assistance comes from the Federal Family Education Loan Program
(FFELP). Anything that upsets the flow of federal student aid funds
through these programs potentially harms access to the populations most
in need of assistance at all institutions, but in particular, Title III
and Title V schools.
TASFAA supports all of efforts, in particular HR 890--The Student
Loan Sunshine Act--to improve transparency in the student loan process
and urges the congress and Department of Education to adopt clear
policies that protect both student loan borrowers and institutions. The
use of ``preferred lender lists'' in Texas has been a very valuable
student loan default prevention tool--protecting the borrower,
institution, and taxpayer--and the practice needs to be continued, but
regulated.
Finally, TASFAA urges the Subcommittee to do all it can to
revitalize the need-based Title IV programs along the lines recommended
by the Federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance in
its 2006 report Mortgaging Our Future: How Financial Barriers To
College Undercut America's Global Competitiveness.
Again, thank you Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to offer TASFAA's
input. The Association is at your disposal as a resource.
______
Chairman Hinojosa. Hearing no objections, it will be done.
I want to thank the witnesses for your presentation and
invite you to join the audience as I bring the last presenter.
And we want to give you a big round of applause. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Commissioner Ray Paredes, we invite you to come before the
members of Congress, and give us the opportunity to have you
give a statement as to how Congress can include the concerns
that you have in this reauthorization of Higher Education Act
reauthorization, so that we can include it into the record here
in this great capital city of Austin.
STATEMENT OF DR. RAY PAREDES, COMMISSIONER, TEXAS HIGHER
EDUCATION COORDINATING BOARD
Dr. Paredes. Well, sir, thank you very much for the
opportunity to speak before you this morning. As you know, we
have a crisis in this country in terms of the funding for
public higher education. The support for public higher
education as a percentage of the overall budgets of both
community colleges and four-year universities has continued to
decline.
Thirty years ago, for example, it was very typical that a
four-year public university would see approximately 75, 80
percent of its budget--even more--come from state sources. Now
we see that increasingly for many public universities the
amount of state support has declined to about 20 percent or
even less of operating budgets.
There has been--the response of universities has been to
both try to seek larger levels of support from the Federal
Government, from private donors, but most significantly from
the students themselves. And what we have seen dramatically in
this country is an increase in the cost of going to higher
education.
The cost of higher education has increased in this country
more steeply than any other sector of the economy except for
health care, and we find that higher education is becoming less
accessible to the poorest students and is becoming a very
significant financial burden for middle class students and
their families.
I would point out that here in Texas, to give you an
indication of our situation, historically Texas has been a low-
cost, low-support State. We kept our tuitions low, and because
tuitions were low we offered very little in terms of State
financial aid. Now we see that Texas is approaching the
national average in the overall cost of higher education, but
our State resources for support of students, either in terms of
grants or in terms of loans, have not increased commensurately.
So Texas is one of the states that has the heaviest
reliance on federal support for our students. Approximately 80
percent of student financial aid for college students in Texas
comes from federal sources, which is much higher than the
national average. So we are particularly concerned about what
happens in Washington, both in terms of supporting students
directly and whatever resources the Federal Government can
provide our institutions to keep their doors open and to
maintain high quality educational opportunities.
I applaud your particular interest in community colleges
and what is going on in community colleges. Here in Texas, we
project that somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of low income,
first generation students who go on to higher education will
begin their higher educational experiences in community
colleges. And so we need to make sure that we do whatever we
can, that community colleges have adequate resources, have
adequate physical facilities, and have adequate means of
financial aid for their students.
The College Connection Program, which you have identified
this morning, as being critical I think is evidence that we
have a huge number of students from low income, first
generation backgrounds who would be very interested in going to
college if two things were occur. First of all, if they had
information about academic readiness, academic preparation, and
if they had information about the availability of financial
aid.
And the reason that the College Connection Program has been
so successful, and why we are trying to emulate it all over the
State, is precisely because it does those two things. It gives
students information about academic readiness, and gives them
information about financial aid.
The other issue that you have called attention to,
particularly you, Congressman Grijalva, is the issue of P16
integration. We need to do everything we can at the state and
the federal level to recognize that we have one academic
pipeline. And what happens in one part of the pipeline affects
what happens in every other part of the pipeline.
In higher education, we cannot do our job effectively if
the K through 12 sector doesn't send us well prepared students.
On the other hand, the K through 12 sector can't do its job
well if we don't send them good teachers, well prepared
teachers. We have to work much more closely together to make
sure that we have full academic opportunity for all our
students.
Chairman Hinojosa. You may continue. We are going to turn
off the clock, because this is a grand opportunity for us to
get into the record those things that you are talking about,
such as pre-kinder through 16, which would take us through four
years of higher education. And I honestly believe that Congress
must continue to increase the amount of the Pell Grant, which
is--hasn't been changed in four years, and is now at $4,300,
with the authorization level of about $5,500.
So we still have a space there that we could increase,
provided that we had the political will and the willingness in
Congress, to increase that because the college presidents at
community colleges and universities speak as--speak to us in
Washington as one of the highest priorities to be able to
impact that affordability.
So please continue.
Dr. Paredes. Well, yes, sir. In relation to the Pell
Grants, as you know, 30 years ago a Pell Grant in many states
in this country paid almost 90 percent of the cost of tuition
and books for students, and now the average is under 40
percent. And that gap has been replaced with loans and
substantial sacrifices on the parts of families. Students take
longer to graduate because they work more, they take fewer
courses as a way of responding to the decline in federal
support. It is something that has reached the crisis stage.
We now have a large number of students all over the
country, certainly in Texas, whose career decisions are to a
large degree influenced by the debt load that they have when
they graduate from a college or a university. Now that the debt
load is typically close to $20,000, we are finding that more
and more college graduates are reluctant to go into highly
critical professions like teaching, because they feel that they
won't earn enough income to pay off their student loans.
We find that particularly students of color, low income
students, delay or suspend their plans to go to graduate
school, once again in critical fields like engineering,
becoming physicians, and so forth, because they don't want to
incur great debt loads, and they feel strongly that they need
to go to work and start paying off their student loans.
So these are issues that we are grateful that you are
paying attention to in Washington at a very high level.
Chairman Hinojosa. Commissioner, I think that the states
must not be let off the hook. I think that you made it quite
clear that 20, 30 years ago, the monies being provided by the
state legislatures throughout the country was a big part of the
money that was used to run our colleges and universities.
But they have completely shifted both public education and
college higher education to property taxpayers and to the
Federal Government. And I have no problem with the latter part;
the Federal Government needs to increase the 7 or 8 percent
that we contribute to local education agency budgets to at
least 15 percent. If I had it my way, I certainly would support
that.
On colleges and universities, it seems that it just can't
be student loans and Pell Grants and other ways of financing
higher ed. So we need to think how we can involve those who
need the trained workforce. If we are going to be enjoying the
prosperity that we enjoy in this country, as we have seen the
last 20 years, we have got to have more students going on to
college. And the business community, it seems to me, is not
investing as they should in higher education.
We talked earlier in the beginning of this hearing, the
strength of bringing these engines of economic development, and
that is community colleges, universities, and the business
community working together, how they can be such a strong force
to provide fountains of employment, which is one of the
important issues in our country.
We need to have the--everybody sending that message to the
state legislators and to the federal legislators, like myself,
so that we can increase that kind of investment if we are going
to have a trained workforce.
I now yield to my colleague from Arizona.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Commissioner, just some observations and a request. I won't
burden you with asking for that, because it is--it is not a
complicated question, but I think it needs attention.
One of the incentives is loan forgiveness as part of the
reauthorization, and it has been kind of categorical and loose
in the process. If there is any thought of you and your
colleagues as to how you structure that loan forgiveness so it
is effective, so it is reaching the people that it is supposed
to reach, so it is generating that talent to go into
underserved schools, Native nations, etcetera, I would
appreciate any reaction to that.
Dr. Paredes. Well, thank you for the opportunity to address
this issue. Here in Texas, the Coordinating Board prefers loan
repayment programs. We find that they are more efficient. We
find that they also enable us to monitor the actual activity of
the students who may have been involved in loan forgiveness or
a loan repayment program.
For example, let us say a student who goes into one of the
stem fields, becomes an engineer, a loan repayment program, we
can get reports annually or every six months from employers to
ensure that they are practicing in the professions for which
they received the loans.
So we think that loan forgiveness, and particularly loan
repayment programs, are wonderful ways to create incentives for
students to go into high need and critical areas. We have loan
repayment programs here in Texas that have worked well in that
regard, and certainly there are some at the federal level that
have also been successful.
Mr. Grijalva. Any information, any recommendations as we go
through this process on how to structure that would be very
much appreciated by myself. And I am sure the----
Dr. Paredes. I would be happy to send you, within the next
day or two, information about our loan repayment programs, and
some of the recommendations we made to the Texas legislature in
the session that just ended about how to expand loan
forgiveness and loan repayment programs.
Mr. Grijalva. Back home the response to the lack of
investment on the part of our State legislature in Arizona has
been rising tuition.
Dr. Paredes. Yes.
Mr. Grijalva. And you compound that with you are paying
more and borrowing more, and it is a vicious cycle that, you
know, I--we hired someone in our office and this poor guy is
starting to work, but he owes $65,000 before he gets done with
his master's degree. Kind of find it ironic.
But I want to thank you for your comments. Appreciate it
very much.
And then, just as a little commentary, and I am full of
commentaries, you know, I find it really ironic, Commissioner,
that we are making this concerted effort nationally to try to
structure our whole visa program so that we are sure we are
bringing in professional talent, that we have the engineers,
the scientists, the technologists, the health providers,
etcetera, in those specialty fields. And so that becomes a
recruitment tool to bring people to this country.
Good, bad, or indifferent, I also think that we wouldn't be
finding ourselves with that shortage if we had made the kind of
investments that you speak of in the people that we all serve.
But anyway, besides that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Hinojosa. Thank you, Congressman.
Before I bring this to closure, I want to say that if you
provide us the information that is being used here in Texas, as
you offered, I will see to it that it be added to the record of
this hearing.
Mr. Grijalva. Good. Thank you.
Chairman Hinojosa. And we look forward to receiving that.
Dr. Paredes. I would be delighted to do so. I will send it
to you both.
Chairman Hinojosa. Once again, I would like to thank the
witnesses and the members of the subcommittee for a very
informative session.
As previously ordered, members will have 14 days to submit
additional materials for the hearing record held here in
Austin, Texas. Any members who wish to submit followup
questions in writing to the witnesses should coordinate with
Majority staff within the requisite time.
Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]