Lamar Smith: “Let me thank my friend from Virginia, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, for yielding me time and…”

“Let me thank my friend from Virginia, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, for yielding me time and also for bringing this bill to the House floor. I support S. 1482, the Need-Based Educational Aid Act. As the author of the identical House bill, I am pleased that we are considering it today. The Need-Based Educational Aid Act extends the current antitrust exemptions set to expire on September 30 for another 7 years. It allows a limited number of private universities that admit students on need- blind basis to award financial aid from the schools' own funds, based entirely on students' demonstrated financial need. This bill authorizes these institutions of higher education to use common principles to assess students' financial need, and it allows the schools to use a common financial aid application form. It also permits multiple schools that have accepted the same student to award the same assistance. This ensures that the student selects the college that is the best fit, rather than the school that offered the most financial aid. This issue has long been of interest to me personally, having worked on three previous extensions. Common treatment of this narrow category of educational aid makes sense. A Government Accountability Office study previously found that there has been no abuse of the antitrust exemption and that tuition has not gone up as a result.…”