Washington D.C. is slowly turning its attention to higher education. In December, on a party-line vote, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce released the PROSPER Act, a bill to update the Higher Education Act for the first time since 2008.

The path to an updated HEA will likely be long. The Senate Higher Education Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) has been holding hearings on the HEA, and has signaled its intent to continue doing so. The full House hasn’t set a date to debate or vote on PROSPER, and some House members feel the process has already moved too quickly, without sufficient bipartisan debate.

But regardless of whether the process is long or short—and Washington D.C. can be unpredictable—Congress should keep innovation at the top of its higher education agenda. The regulatory structures that should protect taxpayers and students, including HEA, but also accreditation and the Department of Education, fall short. They pay too much attention to the inputs of higher education—like faculty degrees and shared governance—and far too little to its outcomes—such as graduation rates or student employment outcomes.

In our latest brief, Modernizing the HEA: Congressional priorities for innovation in higher education, I examine Congress’ critical role in encouraging innovation in order to help America meet the needs of the next generation:

  1. Rethink regulation of online and competency-based education
  2. Reform accreditation: Focus on outcomes, not inputs
  3. Improve the basic data infrastructure of higher education

Read more about the higher education by Alana Dunagan at Christensen Institute