House to Consider NSF for the Future and DOE Science for the Future Acts on Monday
The House plans to consider the National Science Foundation for the Future Act ( H.R. 2225) and the Department of Energy Science for the Future Act ( H.R. 3593) as early as Monday, June 28, under suspension of the rules. The bills will significantly boost authorized funding for the NSF and the DOE’s Office of Science. ( Association of American Universities - June 25, 2021)
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Consequences for Harassers
The National Institutes of Health says that 75 principal investigators have been removed from grants due to sexual harassment and other hostile workplace claims in the last three years. Separately, the National Academy of Sciences says that it has removed two members due to sexual misconduct. Prior to 2018, no PI had been removed from an NIH grant for sexual misconduct. The National Academy hadn’t removed any members for this reason, either, prior to this year. The Me Too movement and specific campaigns against sexual harassment and assault in the sciences pushed these organizations to consider behavioral misconduct as seriously as research misconduct. But it took years in some cases for these consequences to play out. ( Inside Higher Ed - June 28, 2021)
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Doubling Pell Has Broad Support, but Is It Attainable?
The idea of doubling the maximum Pell Grant award has grown to be widely popular, garnering support from hundreds of organizations and people all the way up to President Biden. While the policy proposal may have seemed pie-in-the-sky a decade ago, it’s becoming less so now, according to advocates and experts. But the amount of the grant aid available to students hasn’t kept up with the rising costs of college —the maximum Pell Grant used to cover close to 80 percent of the cost of college, and now it covers less than a third. Congressional Democrats are hoping to deliver on their ask. Last week, Democratic senators Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Patty Murray of Washington, alongside Democratic representatives Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Bobby Scott of Virginia, introduced the Pell Grant Preservation and Expansion Act of 2021, which would increase the maximum Pell Grant to $13,000 by the 2027-28 award year and index it to inflation for each subsequent award year. ( Inside Higher Ed - June 25, 2021)
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A Decades-Old Law, Now More Important Than Ever
The [1990] Clery Act has a similar purpose as Title IX now does —to stem sexual violence on college campuses and protect students, commonly women, who are attacked. But campus safety experts and advocates for sexual assault survivors say the Clery Act doesn’t get the attention it deserves for mandating quick and fair responses by college officials to sexual violence. This is due in part to the heightened national focus on changes to Title IX in recent years, but also because the Clery Act lacks certain accountability measures. For example, students who believe their colleges are in violation of the law cannot sue the institutions under Clery. As the U.S. Department of Education begins reversing Title IX regulations enacted by the Trump administration, some campus safety and sexual assault survivor advocates are proposing that department officials hone guidance about the Clery Act. ( Inside Higher Ed - June 25, 2021)
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FSA Changes Course on Streamlined Loan Servicing
The Office of Federal Student Aid has canceled its solicitation for vendors to run its intermediate phase of modernizing student loan servicing, according to people familiar with the matter. FSA introduced the Interim Servicing Solution, or ISS, last fall as a part of its Next Gen FSA Initiative to provide a bridge between the current student loan servicing system and a single, modernized website. Currently, there are nine different pre-default loan servicers that each operate their own website, contact center and staff training. ISS was intended to cut that down to two vendors who would take on all of the same responsibilities as the existing servicers. The end-of-year congressional budget agreement passed in December included several provisions related to the ISS solicitation, including a prohibition on allowing the secretary of education to award funding for any work related to developing a new loan servicing system unless it included multiple servicers that contract directly with the Department of Education. After FSA reviewed the impact of the provisions, it decided to cancel ISS solicitation. ( Inside Higher Ed - June 28, 2021)
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