Political Quotes

“Madam Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2117, the Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act. This important legislation aims to repeal two of the Department of Education's packages of regulations that will hinder colleges and universities from making decisions that best serve their students. These Federal regulations handed down from the Department of Education are not only proving to be costly, but they're intruding into areas best handled by academic institutions individually and also States. Today, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 2117 to repeal two regulations specifically that affect State authorization of academic institutions and the definition of credit hours. These provisions allow the Federal Government to reach further into the educational authority of the States. The State authorization provision requires institutions offering distance-education programs to meet requirements in every State in which they have a distance-education student. This regulation threatens programs like those offered by Penn State's World Campus and limits access to quality education. Many programs have already started to identify States where they will no longer be able to offer distance education. The credit-hour provision establishes a Federal definition of a credit hour, hindering institutions of higher education from making innovative and sensible core academic decisions related to their curriculum and imposing a one- size-fits-all approach.…”