Finding the Balance: A Political Analysis of the 2008 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

The Higher Education Act accounts for 2/3 of all student financial aid in American higher education. An analysis of the environment, issues, actors, and institutional dynamics of HEA’s 2008 reauthorization process demonstrates that the resulting policy shift toward greater regulation was a politically predictable outcome. Rising public support for postsecondary education concurrent with rising concerns about cost created a policy window for Republican reformers to demand greater accountability in higher education. Opposition from the traditional Democratic-higher education advocacy coalition was fragmented by turnover and eventually accommodated to reformer demands in return for the continued expansion of grant and loan support.