Key higher ed provisions in reconciliation bill violate Senate rules, official finds

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Several higher education-related provisions of what Republicans have dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” violate the rules of the reconciliation process and should be subject to a 60-vote majority to pass, the chamber’s parliamentarian found Thursday. 

Democrats on the budget committee shared the findings in a news release the same day. Although Republicans could bypass the findings, the parliamentarian’s conclusions could deal a blow to those provisions given the political cost of violating Senate rules. 

The reconciliation process allows the Senate to bypass the filibuster, which takes 60 votes to overcome, for budget-related bills tied to federal spending and revenue. Per what’s known as the “Byrd Rule,” which goes back to the 1980s, reconciliation bills aren’t supposed to increase the federal deficit beyond the budget window, and must change spending or revenue. 

The higher ed provisions in the bill found to violate Senate rules include:

• An expansion of the Pell Grant program that would allow the federal aid to be used for short-term programs — between eight and 15 weeks — including those run by unaccredited operators. 

• An overhaul of the student loan repayment plans that would sweep away many existing options, leaving only a standard plan with fixed payments and an income-based repayment plan. 

• Ending federal aid eligibility for some non-citizen students. 

A handful of provisions are still under review by the Senate parliamentarian to determine if they would violate the reconciliation process:

• A repeal of the Biden administration’s version of the borrower defense to repayment and closed school discharge regulations, which have been blocked by an appellate court and are being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The rules provide debt relief to students misled by colleges or whose institutions closed before they could finish.

• A restriction on the U.S. education secretary from issuing “economically significant” regulations, defined as a rule that would affect at least $100 million annually or have an adverse impact on the economy. 

Several other pieces of the bill unrelated to education have been flagged as well. 

The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, acts as a nonpartisan, nonmember adviser to the legislative body. Parliamentarians’ determinations, including on whether reconciliation bills adhere to the Byrd rule, are generally given strong weight but are not binding. 

“The Byrd Rule must be enforced, and Republicans shouldn’t get away with circumventing the rules of reconciliation,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat and ranking member of the Senate budget committee, said in a statement Thursday.

President Donald Trump has called for passage of a reconciliation bill by July 4. However, the Senate’s reconciliation proposals differ on many key areas from the House’s bill, including on their respective higher education agendas. That adds difficulty to Republicans’ efforts to pass a package in both chambers, with the party controlling each by only thin majorities. 

For example, while both versions would eliminate GRAD Plus loans and revamp the student loan repayment system, the Senate version includes a much smaller increase to the endowment tax and ditches a complicated risk-sharing proposal included in the House version that would put colleges on the hook for unpaid student loans. 

Many higher education groups and advocates have raised alarms about both versions, saying they would restrict college access and harm many institutions as well as lower-income students.