Under the Big Beautiful Bill, Colleges With Low-Earning Grads Could Lose Access to Student Loans
“There is an intuitive understanding that if you go to college, you should make more than someone who doesn’t go to college.”
People have been saying for years that schools need to have some actual skin in the game. This is it.
CBS News reports:
Colleges with low-earning grads could lose access to student loans. Here’s why.
Some college programs whose graduates earn less than workers with only a high school diploma could lose access to federal student loans under the Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” act, a change that could impact about 40,000 U.S. college students, according to a recent analysis.
About 2% of U.S. associate and bachelor’s degree-granting programs are at risk under the new provision, called “do no harm,” which takes effect in July, according to research from the HEA Group, a higher-education research firm.
The provision, part of the GOP tax and spending law’s overhaul of student loans, requires programs to show that graduates earn more than high school graduates. College arts, religion and trade programs such as cosmetology are the most likely to be cut off from federal student loans, according to HEA.
The new rule reflects Republican efforts to bar federal student loans for degrees that “leave students worse off than if they never went to college,” according to a 2025 statement from the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
The value of a college education has increasingly come into question in recent years, especially as tuition costs have soared, leaving millions of Americans saddled with $1.8 trillion in student loans.
“There is a piece of law that states that each and every degree program should now be required to demonstrate that the majority of their graduates earn more than a high school graduate,” Michael Itzkowitz, president of HEA Group, told CBS News. “There is an intuitive understanding that if you go to college, you should make more than someone who doesn’t go to college.”
The “big, beautiful” act measures earnings four years after students get their degree, comparing graduates’ pay with that of a typical high school graduate. Programs that fail the test in two of three consecutive years could be barred from using federal student loans to finance students’ education.
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Comments
huh???
those with great scores shouldnt even need tax bailouts as those great scores generally lead to great jobs and then its up to the schools to get alumni to “pay it forward” etc
why do americans insist on being sucker punched non stop !!!?
They should also have added a clause that penalizes the schools for having an excessive number of their current enrollees subject to criminal indictments BEFORE graduation. We could call it the Double Secret Probation Provision.
Somebody is forgetting that a college diploma only confirms that the recipient is TRAINABLE, nothing more is implied/inferred.
This is a bit off the mark. There are a number of traditional fields that pay very low but are worthwhile. The administration should attack nonsense majors like black lesbian studies by reversing Obama’s Federal takeover of the student loan industry and force schools and private lenders to back the loans.
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