Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
The bill amends the Higher Education Act to set minimum standards for institutional net price calculators, including prominent links, required input and results fields, data recency, and prohibition on selling personally identifiable information. It authorizes the Education Secretary to develop a Department-hosted universal net price calculator, requires consumer testing and reporting, and directs a report on outreach to prospective and low-income students within one year.
Federal universal calculator: liberals favor; conservatives worry about federal overreach.
Relative to its intended legislative type, this bill establishes clear substantive obligations and detailed content standards for institutional net price calculators, and it creates a framework for a Department-hosted universal calculator with consumer testing and reporting requirements, but it omits funding and enforcement provisions.
The bill amends the Higher Education Act to set minimum standards for institutional net price calculators, including prominent links, required input and results fields, data recency, and prohibition on selling personally identifiable information.
It authorizes the Education Secretary to develop a Department-hosted universal net price calculator, requires consumer testing and reporting, and directs a report on outreach to prospective and low-income students within one year.
Narrow, technical, consumer-focused bill with limited cost and bipartisan appeal increases passage prospects, but requires administrative resources and inter-agency work.
Relative to its intended legislative type, this bill establishes clear substantive obligations and detailed content standards for institutional net price calculators, and it creates a framework for a Department-hosted universal calculator with consumer testing and reporting requirements, but it omits funding and enforcement provisions.
Federal universal calculator: liberals favor; conservatives worry about federal overreach.
These are examples from the analysis, not a ranked list of the most-affected groups.
Federal universal calculator: liberals favor; conservatives worry about federal overreach.
Likely broadly supportive: the bill increases price transparency and consumer protections for prospective students, especially low-income and first-generation students.
It improves grant estimate disclosure, prohibits selling user PII, and creates a universal option to simplify comparisons across schools.
Generally favorable but pragmatic: this modernizes consumer tools and provides useful standardization, while raising questions about implementation costs and accuracy.
Support likely depends on clear timelines, modest compliance costs, and effective consumer testing.
Skeptical: while transparency is defensible, mandates on link formatting, content, and a Department-branded universal calculator raise concerns about federal overreach and added burdens for institutions.
Privacy language helps, but centralization and branding by Education Department are problematic.
Reached or meaningfully advanced
Reached or meaningfully advanced
Still ahead
Still ahead
Still ahead
Narrow, technical, consumer-focused bill with limited cost and bipartisan appeal increases passage prospects, but requires administrative resources and inter-agency work.
The bill has not accumulated any surfaced votes yet.
Federal universal calculator: liberals favor; conservatives worry about federal overreach.
Narrow, technical, consumer-focused bill with limited cost and bipartisan appeal increases passage prospects, but requires administrative r…
Relative to its intended legislative type, this bill establishes clear substantive obligations and detailed content standards for institutional net price calculators, and it creates a framework for a Department-hosted u…
Go beyond the headline summary with full stakeholder mapping, legislative design analysis, passage barriers, and lens-by-lens tradeoff breakdowns.