New Pullias Center Brief Puts Focus on Reauthorization of Higher Education Act
Authors make the case that Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization could be used as a lever to promote anti-racism in higher education.
The new brief “Centering Racial Justice in the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act: A Roadmap for Legislators” builds on the Pullias Center for Higher Education’s 2017 report defining the HEA that offered three principles for reauthorization (equal opportunity to learn and equal protection under the law; evidence-based policy; and consumer protection). The 2021 follow-up, which is intended as a guide for policymakers under the new Biden Administration, focuses on how HEA reauthorization can be used as a tool for promoting anti-racism in higher education.
“While HEA reauthorization represents an important opportunity to advance racial justice and counter anti-Blackness, it is far from the only action needed in higher education policy,” notes Elise Swanson, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Pullias Center and lead author of the report. “State policymakers, institutional leaders, faculty members, staff members, and students all need to work together to respond to the call for transformation, healing, and racial justice.”
First passed in 1965, the Higher Education Act (HEA) gives the federal government a means to influence policy across the country’s decentralized higher education system, including financial aid administration, investment in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and reasonable regulation of for-profit colleges and universities, among other areas. . While meant to be passed every five years, an updated HEA has not been passed since 2008, instead being passed through continuous, temporary extensions by Congress. Reauthorization in 2021 offers an opportunity to advance a more cohesive, equitable postsecondary agenda.
“The needs and voices of [those systemically marginalized] should also be lifted up, and policymakers should respond to these calls for action through policy” notes Adrianna Kezar, Director of the Pullias Center and one of the report’s co-authors. And further: “it is critical that federal policymakers approach reauthorization from a color conscious and anti-racist perspective. Now is the time to finally make good on the promise of equity and to dismantle discriminatory policies.”
The brief outlines specific topics and implications such as reforming financial aid, addressing student loan debt, regulating for-profit institutions, funding Historically Black Colleges and Universities, providing adequate resources to community colleges to promote college access and student success, and addressing intersectionality in gender-based discrimination through Title IX.
President Biden has made investing in education, expanding economic opportunity, and promoting racial equity clear priorities of his administration. Tackling the topics outlined in this brief through the reauthorization of the HEA will allow the Biden Administration and Congress to pursue those very goals.
“Centering Racial Justice in the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act: A Roadmap for Legislators” is now available for download.