The Higher Education Act originally was signed as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda in 1965.
Its intent was “to strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students in postsecondary and higher education.” Fair enough, but not surprisingly, the vagueness of that wording has allowed a constant growth and widening and changing of the act’s intent.
For instance, would it surprise you to know that it includes tenets involving encouraging voter registration and illegal file sharing (movie piracy)?
Although the legislation was reauthorized by Congress in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998 and 2008, it hasn’t been reauthorized since as partisan politics have pushed Democrats and Republicans farther apart on the political spectrum. Although the last authorization expired in 2013, the legislation has been extended as Congress attempts to work out a new reauthorization, or at least an update.
That reauthorization, or update, this time around must go through the hands of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, chairman of the Senate’s education committee.