Washington, D.C. — The American Association of University Women applauds the House of Representatives for passing (354-58) the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (H.R. 4137) last night. This bill supports important programs and provides new opportunities that help all students, but especially women, pursue higher education.
“AAUW is pleased the bill takes steps to address the needs of the growing number of nontraditional students, many of whom are female,” said AAUW Director of Public Policy and Government Relations Lisa Maatz. “AAUW priorities such as year-round Pell grants, expanded SMART grant eligibility for part-time students, and improvements to the campus-based child-care program will assist nontraditional students as they struggle to make their college dreams reality.”
H.R. 4137 also includes important provisions to increase women’s representation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields by bolstering student interest, improving teacher recruitment and training, and funding a campaign to expand the population of qualified individuals in STEM fields by specifically analyzing factors that limit the participation of women and minorities.
In addition, the bill creates the Patsy Mink Graduate Fellowship Program, named in honor of former Congresswoman Patsy Mink (D-HI), a primary force behind Title IX and an AAUW member. AAUW led the support for this program and believes it will help diversify the professoriate by providing fellowships for women and minority students obtaining doctorates or other terminal degrees with a specified teaching requirement after graduation.
“We are particularly pleased that the legislation includes this new program, because women make up only 39 percent of full-time collegiate faculty and tend to be concentrated in less-senior instructional positions and at two-year institutions rather than research universities,” said Maatz
AAUW also strongly supports the bill’s inclusion of a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education grant, which will be used to assess the feasibility and design of an inter-institution monitoring organization on gender and racial equity in campus faculty and administration. In addition, the legislation calls for a study on gender and other biases present in standardized college and university admissions tests and aligns the Higher Education Act hate crimes categories with the ones used by the FBI. AAUW led the support for the provisions to improve campus hate crime reporting.
“AAUW commends the House of Representatives for passing H.R. 4137, which we enthusiastically supported,” said Maatz. “We hope the House and Senate work to conference their bills quickly, so these programs can start helping more students realize the dream of a higher education as soon as possible.”
For more information or to schedule an interview with Lisa Maatz, AAUW director of public policy and government relations, please contact Ashley Carr, AAUW director of communications and marketing, at 202/785-7745 or Carra@aauw.org.To read AAUW’s position paper on higher education, visit http://www.aauw.org/advocacy/issue_advocacy/actionpages/hea.cfm.
