New relief bill waives "50 percent" rule

Among the many bills still pending in Congress to help hurricane victims lies one with a catch, according to the American Federation of Teachers. Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, teamed up with ranking member Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to offer a Hurricane Katrina relief bill that would allow the Department of Education to waive requirements in the hurricane zone regarding repayment of aid not used because of school interruption, allowing extra time to repay loans and increasing loan limits.

The bill would also allow the department to transfer Work-Study funds from one school to another and waive the matching requirement this academic year for students who transfer because of the storm.

But the bill also includes a measure to encourage distance learning by waiving the 50 percent rule--which bars a school from offering federal financial aid if more than half of its classes are offered via distance education--for any institute of higher education in the country. Since students could attend from anywhere, the waiver is not limited to students and schools in the hurricane zone. And unlike the other student aid waivers, this provision has no time limit. "If you are going to talk about doing that, we should limit that to those affected and sunset it," says Gabriella Gomez, AFT's chief lobbyist on higher education issues.

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