Republicans Fire Back at Education Lobbyists
Last week we told you about a collection of Education Lobbyists who were not satisfied with the recent Congressional efforts. The group sent letters to the Committee on Higher Education about issues they found with H.R. 4283. Today the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that two House Republicans have fired back at the Lobbyists. (Sorry, the story will only be available for 5 days without subscription.) Stephen Burd of the Chronicle writes:
"In a sharply written letter that they mailed to the college groups on Monday, the representatives -- John A. Boehner, the Ohio Republican who heads the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, the California Republican who leads the panel's subcommittee on higher education -- expressed outrage that the lobbyists called for "billions in new federal spending" on higher education at the same time that they "oppose reforms that would give more power to higher-education consumers and encourage federally subsidized colleges and universities to be more accountable."
...
"College lobbyists who had seen the congressmen's letter said they found it disheartening. "While their letter is high on rhetoric, they refuse to acknowledge the many problems in the bill and pointedly ignore the dozens of proposed solutions we offered," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, which had written to the lawmakers on behalf of itself and 44 other college groups."
...
"Mr. Hartle said that colleges would take them up on that offer. "The letter's rhetoric is pretty harsh, and that's probably in response to some of the rhetoric in the letters they received from us," he said. "But their bottom line is that they want concrete proposals with legislative language to make changes. So the onus is on us to provide them with that."