The U.S. Education Department is expected on Monday to release its proposed rules on a new accountability system and related issues that will affect all of higher education.
Under the proposed rules, undergraduate programs must produce completers who earn at least as much as high school graduates or face potential limits on their eligibility for federal student loans and, in some cases, Pell grants.
“The Trump Administration’s proposed accountability framework is grounded in common sense: if postsecondary education programs do not leave graduates better off, taxpayers should not subsidize them,” Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent said in a release. “This consensus-backed framework will drive meaningful change in postsecondary education, ending years of regulatory whiplash and addressing student debt that has left too many students worse off.”
A draft of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) released on Friday would overhaul the accountability framework for the Higher Education Act’s Title IV programs by replacing the former debt-to-earnings metric with a revised earnings premium measure, which the department says will expand transparency and strengthen institutional compliance standards.
Under the proposed Student Tuition and Transparency System (“STATS”), all college and university programs qualifying for federal student aid would be required to report program-level data, including tuition, fees and financial aid details such as grants and scholarships. The data would help inform the public about the value of programs.
The NPRM will be open for public comment until May 20. The department may make changes to the rule in response to public comments. The American Association of Community Colleges will provide an analysis of the proposed rules later this week.
The NPRM is based on a consensus reached by a stakeholders’ committee during a negotiated rulemaking session held earlier this year focused on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that included a new accountability scheme that ties Direct Loan eligibility for degree and graduate certificate programs to defined earnings benchmarks. The committee comprised stakeholders representing institutions of higher education, the business community, students and others. Tonjua Williams, president of St. Petersburg College (Florida), who served as an alternate negotiator for public institutions of higher education, represented community colleges.
