This week, I introduced H.R. 3422, the Competency-based Education Act. This bill provides the framework needed for universities to more easily and effectively provide competency-based education (CBE) programs to students. I am proud to say that my fellow Wisconsin Congressmen, Rep. Mike Gallagher (WI-08) and Rep. Bryan Steil (WI-01), have signed on as cosponsors of this bill.

A major concern in America is the amount of student loan debt students acquire when seeking a traditional four-year college degree. In Wisconsin, the average student graduates with nearly $30,000 of debt. CBE alleviates this by allowing students to learn at their own pace and often obtain the same degree in a much shorter amount to time. For example, under a CBE program, instead of waiting until the end of a semester to take an exam and complete a course, as you would in a traditional four-year college, if a student demonstrates mastery of the subject, they could take the exam early and complete the course ahead of schedule. This would leave the student time in the school year to begin another class and theoretically complete several classes in the CBE program in the same time it takes a student learning under a traditional education model to finish one. So, they would have less time to accumulate mountains of student loan debt.

In a recent hearing held by the House Committee on Education and Labor, one witness asserted that students learning under a CBE program master the skills taught in the classroom better than other models. Because it is the responsibility of the university offering the CBE program, she claimed that they must stand behind each student’s grades in order to preserve an outstanding reputation, which creates an incentive for the university to make sure students are sufficiently grasping the material being taught.

The University of Wisconsin is a leader in CBE and has seen the program save students thousands of dollars, allow for flexible school schedules and deliver the same quality of results as traditional time-based education programs. Two of their most popular programs are in health care and information technology (IT). Should this bill be signed into law, UW has indicated that they would continue to develop programs in these areas as well as business management.

Making sure our students receive the best education possible to prepare them as future leaders of the country has long been one of my top priorities. Equally as important is giving students educational options that do not leave them with a mountain of debt.

I am excited about CBE programs because they take into account each student’s individual learning style and reward them based on their understanding of course material. CBE programs would be a huge boon to our educational system by producing students who learn more with less debt and get out into the workforce more quickly.

To read more, please click here.

I also joined local radio host Vicki McKenna to talk about this bill. Click here to listen!

As you may know, America is over $22 trillion dollars in debt. If you lined up each of those dollars end to end, they would stretch all the way to the moon- 9,000 times over. In order to begin to get a grasp on our spending problem, I introduced an amendment that would have reduced the increase in spending over last year's bill to two percent. We can’t afford to increase spending by eight percent each year, especially since we are currently borrowing 20 percent of what we spend (the deficit). This modest amendment would have enabled us to assess how well a 2 percent increase would work and, hopefully, guide us in the right direction toward fiscal responsibility.

Unfortunately for our country, House Democrats refused to adopt my amendment and chose to further increase America's deficit and debt.