Watch Senate Republicans are eager to approve a detailed bill that cuts spending, taxes, and pays for some of President Donald Trump’s top agenda items.
If passed, complex legislation (called a large bill) should completely reshape the student loan system, increase the donation taxes, force colleges to repay students’ unpaid loans and cut Medicaid significantly, among other changes.
The House passed the measure late last month, putting the ball in the well-known court in the Senate. However, the main senators have hardly said about the higher ED provisions in the bill, so it is unclear which members the House of Lords will prioritize. Senior emergency specialists predict risk sharing, or require colleges to pay fines for unpaid loans, may not survive. Other questions, such as whether to change the eligibility criteria for Pell grants, are even more uncertain. However, any changes to the House bill will be made at a cost, as saving a plan may mean deeper cuts.
Overall, lawmakers will face a difficult balancing act to get legislation through the Senate without endangering the second pass in the House, while the bill advances by the skin of its teeth. Trump calls the bill the most important legislation in his second term, which shows that failure is not an option.
“The big and beautiful bill will implement Trump’s president once again with the biggest tax cuts in U.S. history, the largest border security investment in history, and the biggest deficit reduction in nearly 30 years,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement last month. “The Senate should pass this critical legislation as soon as possible to welcome the golden age of the United States.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion in a decade.
What’s next
Sources familiar with Hill said the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Commission has not yet released a version of its settlement bill, although it is expected to be granted soon as Congressional leaders hope to vote on the legislation by June 16. Legislators are using settlement procedures, so they only need 51 votes in the Senate to pass the bill. But if the Senate version is completely different from the House, the House will have to vote again before legislation reaches the president’s desk.
When the bill does fall, it may skip traditional committee marks, so legislation can reach the Senate vote faster. But fast tracking will limit the time university leaders and others to review and weigh bills.
Policy analysts say Senate and House Republicans may have to make some compromises to move the bill forward. Some Senate Republicans may firmly support changes in certain regulations, but the question is what clauses will be prioritized and which will fall next. For example, can moderate Republicans save Pell grants and health insurance? Or do they have to choose between the two?
In many cases, the survival of cuts in spending and planning changes will depend on “the way the tug-of-war is played between the House and the Senate,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American College of Corporate, a right-leaning think tank.
But if former Trump adviser Elon Musk holds any influence, all of this can throw the loop away. Billionaire tech tycoons who previously led the efficiency of the Trump administration have launched a full-scale dispute with the president via social media, calling the bill “annoying abhorrence” and saying: “Shame of those who voted for it.”
Consistent with accountability
If the settlement bill does move forward, policy experts hope the version proposed by the Senate is very different from the House. Michelle Dimino, director of education at the third road of the left-leaning think tank, said she is seeking to reduce education costs and debt bills, a bill proposed in 2023 by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy to outline the overview. (Cassidy is the chairman of the Senate Education Committee.)
“Senate and House Republicans are not always aligned in their high-level reform approach,” she said. And “No surprise, every chamber tends to favor legislation of internal origins.”
One of the most striking differences between Dimino and other Senate is that everyone tries to hold the university accountable for the financial outcomes of students.
House Republicans want to use risk sharing, a strategy that requires colleges and universities to pay annually based on graduates (or people without a degree) but fail to repay. However, the formula for calculating that fee is complicated, and the university has many questions about how it works and whether it is fair. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that payments for these risk sharing will total $1.3 billion by 2034 and will then continue to increase each year.
Meanwhile, the Lower Education Costs Act requires a remuneration-like program that links college financial aid eligibility to students’ income and debt levels. The idea was first proposed by President Obama, canceled by President Trump during his first term and then expanded by President Biden.
Under award-winning jobs, colleges will have to show that graduates are much more than those with high school diplomas and that their loan payments will be affordable. If a university drops below these thresholds, all federal student aid may not be available. The Senate program may apply to all colleges, while the current paid employment rules apply only to for-profit colleges and non-level programs.
Higher education lobbyists are often more supportive of the Senate’s expected proposal. But they noted that while this is much smaller than risk sharing, there is still concern, especially about how it will affect the institution.
“When data is not available…we are working on concepts and ideas,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the U.S. Board of Education. “So, this raises the question: What is the expected outcome, and is the proposal a solution?”
Other key issues
Policy experts point out that it is uncertain whether the Senate will sign the House to consolidate student loan repayment plans, cap loans, increase donation taxes and change plans, who qualifies for Pell grants. For example, while the House proposes to waive interest on borrowers if their monthly income payments are not enough to cover the 30-year payments and forgive the remaining debts, Cassidy’s legislation will create a more traditional plan in which students accumulate interest, but after 20 or 25 years of payment, all will forgive.
While the House plan will eliminate subsidized loans, end the Graduate Plus Loan Program and limit parents’ loans, experts predict that the Senate may end the loans for graduates and parents and give more positive restrictions on how much money students can borrow.
However, no other aspects of eligibility have been discussed in Cassidy’s 2023 bill. So while the House extends Pell Grant to a short-term workforce program and limits access to the full-time PELL program, it is unclear what the Senate would propose, if any. At a recent hearing, some senators seemed to be silent to make in-depth layoffs on Pell’s plan, although lawmakers generally support the concept of the workforce Pell.
Overall, it’s hard to know exactly where the Senate will fall on most issues, especially because unlike most meetings, it seems that houses have the upper hand.
“I think the Senate wants to come up with a very different bill, which requires a lot of back and forth compromise, but they feel the pressure on the House is getting bigger and less change to get the bill passed faster and reach the deadline on July 4,” he said.
