Beth Akers writes about opportunities for significant reform in American higher education.
The status quo in accountability policy is failing students and taxpayers alike and is overdue for meaningful reform. While reasonable people can disagree about the point of education after high school, most would concur that programs of study should at least leave students better off financially than where they started. Accountability policy should not aim to measure higher education’s value—distinguishing between the good, better, and best programs. Instead, it should extend from the simple principle of “do no economic harm” and focus on ensuring that resources (and implicit government endorsement) aren’t being delivered to institutions that fail students. Frankly, that might seem like a low bar, but it’s a far more stringent standard than the status quo.
This notion of holding colleges and universities to account for their students’ financial outcomes may seem radical, but the concept is not without precedent. It was first employed in a set of regulations referred to as “gainful employment” (GE) that was launched during the Obama administration. After years of legal challenges, the regulations were ultimately repealed by the first Trump administration. While the Biden administration tried to restart the implementation of the GE regulations, the effort was not completed before the end of the administration.
The Trump administration’s decision to repeal the GE regulations was rooted in the fact that the regulations were intended to punish for-profit colleges and universities. Public and nonprofit colleges were largely excluded from meeting the standards laid out in GE. But a better solution would be to enact policy in the spirit of the GE regulations that applies to all institutions equally.
Congressional Republicans have started the ball rolling on this effort. In the 118th Congress, legislation in both the House and the Senate proposed changes to the Higher Education Act that would restrict federal student aid dollars from supporting institutions that fail to advance their students’ economic interests.
