Denver, CO - Today, Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet toured the Galvanize Denver Campus and met with current students, former students, instructors, and companies including DISH and Zayo Group to talk about Galvanize's high-quality, innovative education programs. Galvanize education programs focus on engineering, data science, web development, and entrepreneurship and successfully transition more than 90 percent of students into high paying jobs. Under current law, students are not able to use federal financial aid to attend these types of high-quality, outcome-based programs.

Bennet has introduced the Higher Education Innovation Act with Senator Marco Rubio that would reform the current higher education accreditation system and allow more students to access these types of education programs by allowing them to receive federal financial aid.

"Higher education and job training has never been more important to ensuring our kids can obtain high-paying stable jobs and to building the workforce we need to stay competitive in the global economy," Bennet said. "We need to reform the accreditation system to encourage innovation and focus on student outcomes and success. By allowing students to access federal financial aid to attend these high-quality programs we can boost competition, reduce college costs, increase accessibility, and ensure employers have the skilled workers they need."

The Higher Education Innovation Act creates a 5-year pilot project for an alternative process to access federal student financial aid based on outcomes. Students would have the opportunity to use federal student aid if the new program or existing college they attend demonstrates successful student outcomes and offers high-quality, innovative, and effective programs.

Galvanize is an education company and collaborative workspace launched in 2012. The company is aimed at connecting students and entrepreneurs with growth opportunities and the wider business community. They have seven campuses including Austin, Boulder, Fort Collins, San Francisco, Seattle, and two in Denver. By the end of the year they will have opened a second Boulder campus and a campus in Phoenix.

This is the third stop on Senator Bennet's Pathways to Innovation Tour, a three day, multi-stop tour. Bennet will be traveling up and down the front range visiting Colorado companies to highlight the factors driving the state's thriving innovation economy and to discuss steps to continue growth.