Mr. McKeon has unyeilding dedication to enuring all students have access to student aid.  Today, some $90 billion in federal resources fund student aid programs – that’s nearly triple what it was just a decade ago.  For Pell grants, Congress is now investing a record $13 billion each year – with the maximum Pell award increasing 64 percent over the past decade.

In the 109th Congress, Mckeon helped increase loan limits so students have greater access to aid; reduce loan fees so students can keep more of what they borrow; establishe a new $4.5 billion grant program for low-income, high-achieving high school students; and slash federal subsidies to lenders to save taxpayers billions and ensure that student aid programs are serving the needs of students first.  The fact is, however, unless colleges are held more accountable for their role in the cost crisis, too many low- and middle-income students will face the same financial hurdles, year after year. 

In the 111th Congress, Republicans will continue their call for more information about college costs and outcomes – information about retention rates, whether graduates are learning what they should, why costs are skyrocketing, and what colleges are doing to contain them. Often controversial with the higher education establishment, Republicans will aim to bring greater transparency to an unchecked system so the consumers of higher education – parents and students – have more information than ever before about the education in which they’re investing.  Coupled with our already strong commitment to student aid, such accountability would go a long way toward ensuring students have a chance to go to college and take an important step closer to the American Dream.

Mr. McKeon's major legislative accomplishment in the field of higher education continues to be passage of the Higher Education Act, which reauthorized the Higher Education Act of 1965 to make college more affordable, simplify the student aid system and ensure quality. The legislation cut student loan interest rates to their lowest levels in 16 years, increased Pell Grant authorizations and provided incentives to control the costs of higher education.

Of significant importance, the legislation contained provisions:

• establishing a Performance Based Organization (PBO) within the Department of Education responsible for running the student financial aid system more like a business. Under the previous system, the Department's budget for informational systems doubled over the last five years, but was still wrapped in miles of red-tape, required dozens of paper forms and suffered from needless processing delays and breakdowns. The organization will be judged on how well it serves parents and students and on how much it saves taxpayers by cutting waste, fraud and abuse.
  
   
• creating a program for the establishments of partnerships between local school districts and institutions of higher education to improve teacher preparation. Recently, Congress enacted H.R. 1, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, to expand and increases funding for the partnerships already authorized in 1998 to include quality professional development programs and provides more funding so that we can better prepare teachers for the demands of today's classrooms. This will provide a major boost to schools in their efforts to establish and support a high quality teaching force.

Mr. McKeon has also been a strong supporter of increased funding for the Pell Grant program and the TRIO program, which provides an opportunity for a college education for low and moderate-income students. Recently, Congress provided $10.3 billion for Pell Grants, $1.6 billion more than last year and the highest level in the program's history, and $802.5 million for the TRIO program, which helps disadvantaged students get into college and complete their degrees.

Mr. McKeon has also spearheaded the Upping the Effectiveness of our Federal Student Aid Programs (or FED UP) Initiative to identify needless or overly burdensome regulations within the Higher Education Act of 1965 to bring some sense to the regulations that students and members of the higher education community must deal with on a daily basis. The Initiative aims to streamline the current regulatory system to the extent possible, while maintaining or improving program integrity. Last year, his Subcommittee received over 3,000 responses from college officials, administrators, students and other personnel who operate America’s institutions of higher learning, laying the groundwork for the reforms initiated by the Department of Education and many in Congress.

The statutory changes were included in the FED UP Higher Education Technical Amendments Act of 2003, which would make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act that would make it easier for Hispanic-Serving Institutions to receive federal aid, help college students avoid defaulting on their student loans, clarify that federal scholarship aid can go to low-income and minority students for law school and improve higher education access in other ways recommended by the higher education community. The bill is expected to be considered by the House of Representatives in the near future.

Mr. McKeon has also been instrumental in passage of the:

• Student Loan Marketing Association Reorganization Act of 1996, legislation to provide for the reorganization of the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) from a federally chartered, limited purpose Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE) to a fully private, State-chartered corporation. Prior to passage of the law, Sallie Mae's very success had spawned the evolution of an active and competitive market in the provision of secondary market services to originators of student loans. Because of this trend, there was a reduction in the need for the Federal government to sponsor a GSE like Sallie Mae in order to create a secondary market for guaranteed student loans.
  
   
• Access to Student Loans Act, legislation to permanently extend the student loan interest rate, which was expected to expire in 2003. The bill would ensure the availability of higher education financing to the students embarking on a very important time in their lives and provide for the uninterrupted continuation of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, known as FFELP. In short, it would provides certainty of interest rates for all borrowers in later years.
  
   
• Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, legislation to provide the Secretary of Education with specific waiver authority in light of the recent terrorist attacks and the national emergency declared by the President of the United States on September 14, 2001. The waiver authority would address the need to assist students who are being called up to active duty, those students in the active duty military who are being relocated and those students and borrowers directly affected by the attacks.
  
   
• Internet Equity and Education Act, legislation to expand educational opportunities for students by removing barriers that block full learner access to online learning resources, courses and programs while ensuring accountability of taxpayer dollars. The bill would modify the "50 percent rule" which limits the number of courses an institution may offer via telecommunications by allowing institutions to offer additional courses only if their student loan default rates are below 10 percent, clarify the prohibition on incentive compensation and repeal the unworkable regulation known as the "12 hour rule.