Senator Booker Reintroduces Legislation Aimed at Preserving and Expanding Access to Federal Student Aid

U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) has reintroduced legislation that aims to preserve and expand access to federal student aid for college students.

Specifically, the Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) Reset and Reform Act will restore federal aid eligibility for students who had previously failed to meet existing requirements needed to receive financial assistance.

The legislation will eliminate a double standard that often holds financial aid recipients to different academic requirements than fellow students who do not receive financial aid.

Existing “Satisfactory Academic Progress” or SAP requirements for federal student aid programs, such as completing a certain number of credits or courses and meeting a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0, have become increasingly strict and inflexible for students over the last 40 years.

A recent study focused on three Minnesota community colleges by Higher Learning Advocates found that 29 percent of students in 2019 did not maintain SAP requirements.

Similarly, approximately 40 percent of first-year Pell Grant recipients are at risk of losing aid due to their inability to meet SAP criteria’s course credit component.

Current SAP policies disproportionately harm communities of color, specifically students of Black, Latino, and Native American descent. For the 2015-2016 school year, 57 percent of black students, 47 percent of Latino students, and 51 percent of Native American students relied on Pell Grants compared to 39 percent of all undergraduate students.

Allowing students’ SAP requirements to be reset serves as a second chance for students to earn a degree and helps move higher education institutions towards more equitable education policies and practices.

The Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) Reset and Reform Act amends the Higher Education Act of 1965 in the following ways:

Applies to students in all categories (full-time, part-time, undergrad, graduate, etc.) and applies the same academic strictness level as an institution’s enrollment requirements applied to students not receiving financial assistance

Credit hours from another institution that are accepted towards a student’s educational program count as both attempted and completed hours

Students with previous ineligibility or failure to meet SAP requirements who have not been enrolled in school for two years are eligible for a SAP reset.

The legislation also outlines changes to the frequency of SAP evaluations and communications:

Each institution of higher education that enrolls students receiving grants, loans, or work assistance will review SAP progress at the end of each payment period — those institutions that run on payment periods shorter than the semester system will review student progress on a semester-like period of 12-18 weeks.

Higher education institutions are required to send a financial aid warning at the end of each semester-based payment period to students failing to meet the SAP’s GPA requirements to inform students of their risk of losing grant or loan eligibility.

Students unable to meet SAP requirements that receive this warning can still receive financial aid for one payment period after the notice is issued.

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1 COMMENT

  1. I work in FA. This is all already in the regs, why do we need a law? I think someone is just looking for political points… Also, colleges have an option of using a “graduated SAP” standard that allows a student to have a lower GPA at the start of the program and have the students reach 2.0 at the end of their 4th semester.
    Why is this newsworth??

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