House Democrats Introduce Partisan Bill Reauthorizing WIOA, Likely Excluding Proprietary Institutions
March 31, 2022
Today, Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) introduced the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2022, which would reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). The authorization for WIOA expired in 2020. The bill appears to remove proprietary institutions from eligibility for WIOA programs by amending the definition of “institution of higher education” to remove references to proprietary institutions.
For the fact sheet of the WIOA Act of 2022, click here. For the section-by-section of the WIOA Act of 2022, click here. For the full text of the WIOA Act of 2022, click here.
Analysis
CECU has heard conflicting information about the policy goals of the legislation. On the one hand, we have heard from Democratic staff on the committee that the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has analyzed the bill and believes that proprietary institutions may still be included within the definition of eligible training provider for WIOA programs. The eligible training provider definition references and includes any institution of higher education, as defined in WIOA, which is the same definition that the bill changes to exclude our students.
On the other hand, the Committee published two documents accompanying the release of the WIOA reauthorization bill and neither document explicitly discusses excluding proprietary institutions. This would suggest that they do not intend for the provision to have a substantive effect.
