Giving Compass' Take:

· According to The Hechinger Report, Congress is leaning towards revising the Higher Education Act and proposing to cut roughly $15 billion from student-aid programs. President of Seward County Community College Ken Tzarka discusses the possible negative effects of this proposed cut, explaining that it would reduce college attendance and create a lower-skilled workforce because of higher school costs.

· Why would Congress want to cut student-aid program spending? If this cut happens, how will it affect the American workforce?

· Learn about the Prosper Act and higher education spending.

Right now, Congress is thinking about rewriting the Higher Education Act (HEA), the massive law that provides financial aid to students and families.

It is a rare opportunity to take lessons learned from campuses across the country, and use them to improve educational opportunities for all students

Institutions that provide a high quality higher education can make all the difference in the world to low- and middle-income students who are seeking a better future.

As president of Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kansas, I see this every day. We serve the rural working-class residents of our community on the southwestern border of Kansas and Oklahoma.

The last thing my students need is Congress building barriers and setting back the progress we’ve made. Yet that is what this act does.

The bill would cut nearly $15 billion from student aid programs. It does so by eliminating Supplemental Educational Opportunity (SEOG) grants; by eliminating subsidized loans for low-income students; and by doubling the cost to Seward to participate in the work-study program. In addition, it eliminates the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that helps teachers, law enforcement officers, healthcare and other professionals balance the demands of the specialized training needed to enter and succeed in those fields with the relatively low salaries such service work offers.

Read the full article about student-aid cuts by Ken Tzarka at The Hechinger Report.