"It took five years, dozens of drafts, and a total of 14 extensions, but Congress last week was finally on the verge of passing a bill to renew the Higher Education Act, the major law governing federal student aid," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "Mr. Bush is expected to sign the long-overdue bill, which would be the most significant piece of higher-education legislation to clear Congress since September 2007, when lawmakers passed a measure that slashed subsidies to lenders in the government's student-loan programs and used the savings to significantly increase federal student aid. The 1,158-page bill would set federal higher-education policy for the next five years, creating dozens of grant programs for colleges and students while imposing hundreds of new reporting requirements on institutions. It would crack down on conflicts of interest in the student-loan programs, press institutions and states to rein in tuition, and make it easier for for-profit colleges to become, or to remain, eligible to award federal student aid."