HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.C.R. NO.	274
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2008
STATE OF HAWAII

HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

URGING HAWAII'S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION TO OPPOSE H.R. 4137, THE COLLEGE OPPORTUNITY AND AFFORDABILITY ACT OF 2007.

     WHEREAS, H.R. 4137, the federal College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 is intended to assist the American public in pursuing a college education; and

     WHEREAS, H.R. 4137 encourages colleges to reign-in tuition costs and provides prospective students and their families with helpful information; and

     WHEREAS, H.R. 4137 was intended to restore integrity and accountability to student loan programs, simplify the federal student aid application process, and make textbook costs more manageable; and

     WHEREAS, to achieve these and other objectives, H.R. 4137 dictates to the states budgetary mandates that require the states to fund public higher education in an amount:

(1) equal to or greater than the average amount provided by such State to such institutions of higher education during the 5 most recent preceding academic years for which satisfactory data are available; or (2) equal to or greater than the amount provided by such State to such institutions of higher education during the preceding academic year; and

WHEREAS, under the threat of withholding federal higher education funds to the states, H.R. 4137 intrudes upon a state's right to operate and fund its own public college or university; and

     WHEREAS, H.R. 4137 ignores a state's higher education goals and objectives that may be crafted to serve its distinctively unique constituency; and

WHEREAS, H.R. 4137 also ignores the budget priorities of the states to govern and support higher education programs that are democratically proposed by state policy makers; and

     WHEREAS, H.R. 4137 violates the federalism doctrine by allowing the federal government to overstep its boundaries into an area that has traditionally been the exclusive domain of the states; and

     WHEREAS, H.R. 4137 recently passed in the United States House of Representative and is being considered in the United States Senate; now, therefore,

     BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2008, the Senate concurring, that Hawaii's congressional delegation is urged to oppose H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to Hawaii's congressional delegation, the President of the University of Hawaii, and the Chairperson of the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii.

OFFERED BY:

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Report Title: 

H.R. 4137; College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007