Senator Lamar Alexander on Thursday asked U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez why the labor department is moving forward with its proposed “Overtime” rule “which colleges say could raise tuition by $1000 per student.”
At Thursday morning’s hearing on the FY17 budget request for the labor department, Senator Alexander said to Secretary Perez, “If the president is going to go around, and I’m going to go around, and all of us are going to go around saying ‘we want to keep college costs down,’ how can you justify an overtime rule that might raise the cost of college by one thousand dollars per student?”
Last month the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association (TICUA) issued a letter saying, “In Tennessee, it is expected that the change will cost each four-year campus a minimum of $1.3 million. For instance, one TICUA member calculated that the first year impact would translate to a $1,000 per student increase in tuition. Another rural TICUA campus noted that the change would impact 133 employees for a total of $3.2 million.”
Last month in Nashville, Senator Alexander met with Claude Presnell – President, Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association – where he outlined some specific ideas for actually keeping college affordable, highlighting the bipartisan FAST Act which he says would, “Reduce the length of the dreaded FAFSA form – which is the number one obstacle to applying for the Tennessee Promise's free tuition – from 108 questions to 2 questions, so more students can take advantage of our generous federal student aid programs.”
The full exchange at Thursday morning’s Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies hearing is available here.
Earlier today, Chairman Alexander and Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) released the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act – legislation that will ensure the Department of Labor pursues a balanced and responsible approach to updating federal overtime rules.
Chairman Alexander said, “This mandate on employers will hurt the lowest paid American workers the most, by reducing their opportunities for a promotion or a better job and making it all but impossible for workers to negotiate flexible schedules. In just one example of the dramatic effect it will have, some of Tennessee’s small independent colleges are expecting it to cost them a minimum of $1.3 million each—a giant figure that may cost the colleges’ students in tuition hikes and cost employees in job cuts.”