Washington — Colleges and universities that enroll too few low-income students and those that have the worst graduation rates could suffer financial penalties under a bipartisan bill introduced Thursday.
The bill — formally known as the ASPIRE Act — could affect some of the nation’s most highly regarded institutions that matriculate low levels of Pell Grant recipients, such as Georgetown, Duke University and Notre Dame, to name a few.
The bill could also impact a number of for-profit universities, HSIs and HBCUs that have some of the worst graduation rates in the nation, according to an analysis performed by Education Reform Now, an organization that seeks to influence education policy and which supports the bill.
While the bill has the backing of a number of college presidents and higher education organizations, it seemed to catch unaware some of the organizations whose college and university members would be impacted by the proposed legislation.
The 47-page bill — which takes both a carrot-and-stick as well as a Robin Hood approach to higher education reform — is aimed at fixing what is a “clear system of failure,” according to U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware), who introduced the bill along with U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia).
“This bill incentivizes access and completion — areas that aren’t really assessed and incentivized at anywhere near the level they should be,” Coons said Thursday during a phone conference with reporters.
On the admission side of the bill, Coons said if the 80 institutions with low Pell Grant recipient enrollment would enroll about 2,500 more students, collectively, it would “address the entire issue.”
