Conferees Reach Agreement On Higher-Education Aid Bill

Representatives of the House and Senate emerged from a conference committee Tuesday with a compromise version of the Higher Education Appropriations Bill, which will allocate $48 billion to fund federal student aid programs over the next five years.

The new bill is slated to save $1.5 billion over another compromise version which was defeated by the Senate earlier this month.

Changes in the bill included:

* an increase in the interest on Guaranteed Student Loans (GSL) from 8 to 9 per cent;

* a revision in the methodology by which National Direct Student Loans (NDSL) will be financed;

* a reduction from nine to six months in the grace period before repayment of NDSL and GSL loans begins.

Educators and legislators had been worried that the bill would not be reconsidered during this congressional session and would have to be taken up by the next Congress--a process which could take up to two years--but members of the conference are now confident of the new version's passage, Congressional aides said today.

"The basic reason that it (the earlier version of the bill) failed adoption in the Senate was the Senate Budget Committee felt it was just too expensive," Donald Berens, assistant to the House Education and Labor Committee and a member of the conference group, said yesterday. "We have substantially reduced the total cost of that bill, and hopefully the Senate objection has been dealt with," he added.

Berens said the conference report should be considered in both houses next week. He added that if the bill is not passed there will not be time for reconsideration this session.