Legislative Action

TICAS submitted a letter responding to Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy’s RFI on improving transparency in higher education costs. We expressed our support for a suite of bipartisan bills, including the College Transparency Act, Understanding the True Cost of College Act, Know Before You Owe Federal Student Loan Act, and Net Price Calculator Improvement Act.

Increased work requirements for access to critical nutrition benefits through SNAP and the first-time inclusion of “community engagement” requirements for Medicaid eligibility will endanger access to food and health care for millions of Americans. Provisions in the new law will also create new burdens for state budgets. Our analysis breaks down the potential impact.

The law restructures the federal student loan repayment system, eliminating access to all existing income-based plans for new borrowers and replacing them with a new “Repayment Assistance Plan” (RAP). Our analysis indicates that this new system is likely to spike defaults and harm low-income borrowers.

The new law delays critical protections for students defrauded by their institutions or who experience a sudden school closure by a full decade, leaving them saddled with older regulations that faced bipartisan opposition and resulted in 95% claim denial.

The law makes small modifications limiting some students’ eligibility for the Pell Grant program, expands Pell eligibility to unproven, very-short-term job training programs, and invests stopgap money to prevent a looming program funding shortfall. These changes are likely a mixed bag for students and will require careful implementation and oversight.

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law a budget reconciliation bill that makes radical changes to numerous federal safety net programs, tax policy, and higher education policy. Our latest resource provides a point-by-point summary of higher education, SNAP, and Medicaid provisions in the law.