Washington — The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to approve a compromise budget outline that could ease passage of President Obama’s plan to end guaranteed student lending and make the Pell Grant program mandatory. The Senate could take up the bill as soon as today.

The outline, which appropriators will use as a guide when they draft their spending bills for the coming fiscal year, instructs the Congressional education committees to wring $1-billion in savings from their budget through a process known as budget reconciliation. Lawmakers will very likely seek those savings through changes in the bank-based program, potentially even eliminating it altogether.

The inclusion of “reconciliation instructions” in the compromise blueprint is significant because reconciliation bills, unlike normal bills, are filibuster-proof. In the Senate, where there are 57 Democrats and two Independents who tend to vote with Democrats, the plan could pass with only 51 votes, nine fewer than it takes to overcome a filibuster.

But the spending plan isn’t all bad news for lenders. It also contains a “sense of the Congress” that any changes in the loan programs “should include some future role for the currently involved private and nonprofit entities, including state nonprofits with 100 percent [guaranteed lending] in the state,” and that “loan processing, administration, and servicing should continue to be performed, as needed, by for-profit and nonprofit lenders.”

The budget outline would not make Pell Grant spending mandatory immediately, as Mr. Obama has proposed, but it would create “reserve funds” that could be used to make Pell Grants an entitlement and index the maximum award to the Consumer Price Index plus a percentage point. —Kelly Field