Walsh University President Tim Collins is no stranger to Capitol Hill.
He spent years lobbying there during his time at Johns Hopkins University, a private school in Baltimore known for its rigorous scientific research.
Back then, he said, he found himself “often working with a Congress where we were trying to find a way to do good things.” Over the past five years, when he has found himself back in the U.S. Capitol advocating for his North Canton campus of about 2,160 total students, he said that has changed.
“Mostly, I find myself on the Hill trying to stop a bad idea,” he said.
Collins returned to Washington, D.C., last week. This time, he was joined by his presidential peers from eight similarly sized colleges, including the Cleveland Institute of Art, Kenyon College and the University of Findlay.
Competition for students can be fierce, especially as institutions face shifting demographics and Americans’ distrust in higher education. The pressure’s amplified for the many small private schools that often depend far more on students’ tuition dollars than other schools do.
But for this trip, in meetings with lawmakers and other government leaders, the presidents pleaded a collective case, including telling officials how their schools will be hit by a host of federal changes included in the Trump administration’s sweeping new spending package.
“We’re trying to give them a perspective where they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we hadn’t thought about that,’” he said.
‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ brings big changes to federal student loan system
The country’s roughly 1,700 private non-profit institutions receive far less state and federal money than public universities and community colleges. While that offers greater distance from governmental oversight, it doesn’t completely insulate them from all of lawmakers’ decisions.
Private colleges, for example, enroll many students who take out federal student loans to pay for their education. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is overhauling that system.
The legislation caps the amount of federal money parents can take out to pay for their child’s undergraduate education at $20,000 annually and $65,000 over the course of a degree. Federal funding for graduate programs maxes out at a lifetime borrowing limit of either $100,000 or $200,000, depending on the type of program, another eligibility change brought along by the legislation.
Government education officials said this will help curb student loan debt and hold colleges accountable. Others worry it will instead force students to take out private loans, which often have higher interest rates and fewer protections. Walsh’s Collins said it feels like a way for the government to control tuition prices.
“I don’t know of any program where the government comes along and says, ‘The cost of a family minivan should be no more than $32,000,’ and so suddenly, all the automakers produce $32,000 minivans,” he said.
The law also ties an academic program’s future federal loan eligibility to how much money its graduates earn. Collins said he believes private colleges fundamentally agree with that push for more transparency and accountability.
But he worries about what these federal rules look like in reality for schools like his – and how these changes may impact people who want to enroll.
“There are students that would have had an opportunity that now won’t have the opportunity because of some of this stuff,” he said.
Private college presidents meet with senators
The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio (AICUO) organized meetings in Washington last week, including with the offices of the state’s Republican senators, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted.
AICUO officials said they’ve been organizing these types of events for their members for years. The meet-ups are typically tacked on to the end of a national conference that already brings many leaders to D.C.
“The association believes that advocacy works best when institution leaders and elected officials work as partners to understand the impact of policy and legislation on higher education and the workforce in Ohio,” AICUO president C. Todd Jones told Signal Ohio via email.
Stumping in Washington is par for the course at many large universities, especially those that historically receive and rely on federal research funding. Public flagships and well-resourced private universities often employ robust teams of employees focused on state and federal lobbying.
That’s not the case at most tuition-dependent campuses. Walsh’s Collins said his university doesn’t have any internal or external employees strictly focused on that work.
What comes next
Back in Ohio, Collins admits he doesn’t think these recent conversations will spur any immediate changes. The spending bill is settled law.
But he said the trip at least made him feel as though leaders acknowledged the issues private colleges face. Now, he’s “fighting for the revisit opportunity,” hoping that lawmakers will keep these private college leaders in mind when crafting future policies.
“I think we’ll get another crack at it to really try to do better,” he said.
