The Innovation Zone Act would authorize the Department of Education to establish voluntary experiments that test regulatory flexibility at colleges and universities to improve student success. These experiments could allow participating institutions to waive certain federal requirements related to student loans, financial aid, and graduation timelines in order to try new approaches aimed at reducing student debt, improving retention and completion rates, closing achievement gaps for underrepresented students, enhancing employment outcomes, and addressing student food and housing security. The Secretary of Education would select experiments based on research promising results, limit each experiment to 4 years with possible 2-year extensions, involve between 5 and 100 institutions per experiment, and establish rigorous evaluation methods to measure impact. The bill prohibits waivers of key protections including antidiscrimination rules, campus safety requirements, and loan maximums, and requires the Department to report to Congress every two years on the status and findings of all experiments. The legislation does not specify dedicated funding amounts but obligates the Department to solicit experiment suggestions from the public and stakeholders at least every two years.
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