Politico Pro: Education Whiteboard: Alexander Aiming for HEA Vote by the End of the Year

The Senate will vote to reauthorize the Higher Education Act by the end of the year, Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters today.

“We’ll get it done this year,” Alexander said after a Senate HELP Committee hearing on federal regulations in higher education. “I see no reason why we can’t finish this in 2015. At least, that will be our goal.”

In the next two or three weeks, the committee chairman said, he and ranking member Sen. Patty Murray will lay out a process for reauthorization. A series of hearings will likely begin in April, he said, with a mid-year target date for a bill mark-up. Alexander hopes to present a bill to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just before or after the August recess.

“Then we’ll just wait our turn,” he said.

Alexander said the report of the Senate-appointed Task Force on Federal Regulation of Higher Education, which the committee discussed at the hearing, will “be the basis for much of what we do” in reauthorization.

He added that the Senate will work “on parallel tracks” with the House reauthorization process.