Campus Progress congratulates Congress on the passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. This legislation takes another small step toward an affordable and accessible system of higher education, and will finally reauthorize the Higher Education Act of 1965.

If signed into law, this bill will help to end the conflicts of interest at college financial aid offices that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and others uncovered last year, and improve protections for student borrowers.  (Campus Progress has been active on this issue.  We released a guide for student journalists and activists to investigate their schools’ relationships with student loan companies.  After one inquiry by Campus Progress staff, Florida A&M University stopped actions that had the effect of improperly steering students to a preferred lender.)

The new legislation will take other steps toward making college affordable; it will: allow students to receive Pell Grants year-round, encourage schools and states to control tuition increases and invest in higher education, expand programs for graduate students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and minority serving institutions, lower textbook costs by providing more information to professors and students, and help active duty military personal, veterans, and their families afford and be successful in college.

While the Higher Education and Opportunity Act contains several valuable reforms to the higher education system, there is still much that Congress, state governments, and colleges themselves can do to soften the blow of student debt and put college within reach of every qualified applicant. Campus Progress looks forward to continuing to work with Congress, coalition members of the Campaign for College Affordability, and young people across the country to raise awareness about student debt and access to education.

Finally, our sister organization, Campus Progress Action, has asked young people across the country to submit video testimonials about the issues that are driving them to the polls, and college affordability and public education are the top two issues young people have cited. Some of the best testimonials on college affordability are “In Debt” and “Books not Bombs,” and all of the testimonials can be found at http://imvotingfor.org.  Media interested in speaking to any of the students featured on the website about their experiences with student debt, should contact imvotingfor@campusprogressaction.org.