Vocational programs have long been required to help their students secure gainful employment, but until the early 2010s, gainful employment had never been defined. The Biden administration has just released a draft of the latest Gainful Employment regulations, and, like the previous iterations, it would terminate financial aid eligibility (Pell grants, students loans, etc.) for postsecondary programs...
Student loans operate very strangely in this country. A student borrows money from the federal government to pay for higher education expenses—thus, there are three parties involved (the student, the government, and the college or university). But only two of them face any risk from the loan. The student faces severe financial consequences if he...
Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jarrod Kelly chides the Right for pushing back on accreditation. While the headline is a bit aggressive (“The Right-Wing War on Accreditation”), authors generally don’t get to choose their headlines, and the piece itself is quite measured. While the ostensible focus of our disagreement is accreditation, I think the root cause...
Accountability is getting more and more attention in higher education. Democrats will soon release new gainful employment regulations, while Republicans are considering a range of accountability approaches, including risk-sharing that would put colleges on the hook when students can’t repay their student loans. With so many new ideas for accountability systems in the air, it...
College accreditors are quasi-private organizations that have been given enormous power over higher education. Without an accreditor’s approval, a college’s students cannot receive federal financial aid like Pell grants and federal student loans. Since few colleges can survive without access to these programs, accreditors essentially hold the fate of their colleges in their hands. One...
Historically, I’ve been a late adopter of technology. I was one of the last people I know to get a cell phone. And I continued to pay for gas inside the gas station for years after everyone else started paying at the pump with a credit card. But recognizing my own Luddite tendencies, I try to deliberately...
The Biden administration has released its plans to introduce a new income-driven repayment program for student loans. The proposed regulations are as bad as the early indications hinted they would be. For those just getting up to speed, a standard loan uses a fixed monthly payment and a predetermined number of payments (e.g., a car loan of $500 per...
While it’s understandable to get riled up about the latest outrage on campus, there is some potential good news that we shouldn’t fail to notice: After decades of continuously increasing, college tuition now appears to be trending down. While the level of tuition may still be too high (decades of sustained increases will do that), it is...
President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is currently being evaluated by the courts. While we wait on them to rule on whether Biden’s actions are legal, we should make sure not to forget about the top five underappreciated scandals that accompanied the announcement: No. 1: Even liberals object to Biden’s abuse of emergency powers Biden...
The Biden administration just announced its long-anticipated student loan forgiveness plan. The plan would forgive $10,000 for borrowers making less than $125,000 per year ($250,000 if married) and $20,000 for Pell grant recipients. On the bright side, the Biden plan could have been worse, such as wiping out all debt with no income restrictions. But...
In a recent interview, Richard Hanania and Gail Heriot note how the legal concept of disparate impact—that any difference in group outcomes is evidence of discrimination—essentially makes everything illegal. This, in turn, gives the government the authority to do whatever it wants by selectively choosing which cases to bring: “Literally any practice you can think of has...
For years progressives have been trying to close an imaginary loophole regarding the 90-10 rule and the GI Bill. Colleges are subject to the 90-10 rule, which requires that no more than 90% of their revenue can come from federal financial aid. Meanwhile, Congress has consistently passed GI Bills, which provide funding for servicemembers and...