Later this month, 35 AACRAO advocates will meet with nearly 90 Congressional offices to discuss the association’s legislative policy priorities. AACRAO’s annual Hill Day events allow members to engage with congressional offices to discuss their work and share their perspectives, as practitioners, on how policy impacts the work that you do daily.
This year’s AACRAO advocates possess a wide range of expertise in admissions, enrollment services, financial aid, veterans and servicemember issues, community colleges, and graduate and professional education, among other things. They represent public, private non-profit, and private for-profit two-year and four-year institutions from 25 states represented on the House and Senate education committees.
Meet the 2022 AACRAO Advocates
The federal Pell Grant program celebrated 50 years of opening doors to higher education. When the program launched, the maximum grant covered more than three-quarters of the cost of attending a four-year public college. Today, that has declined to less than one-third. AACRAO advocates will urge congressional offices to #DoublePell and increase the maximum award to $13,000 to bring affordable, high-quality college education within reach of all students.
Attendees will also advocate for a number of changes to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to identify electronic records in the definition of educational records, clarify that third-party record collectors should be subject to the law, and correct the 2012 regulatory amendments that dramatically expanded FERPA.
Additionally, the group will encourage lawmakers to support the Reverse Transfer Efficiency Act to assist institutions in identifying students who have earned enough credits to be awarded an associate's degree through reverse transfer. The bipartisan, bicameral bill would establish a new exemption under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to allow the sharing of student information between institutions to facilitate increased college completion rates. The legislation includes language, championed by AACRAO, to increase the flexibility to complete an assessment of student records while still adhering to FERPA standards.
Learn more about how you can help to promote the #DoublePell campaign, and visit AACRAO's Advocacy Center to learn about other issues we support and lend your voice.