A Fatal Mistake in the Gainful Employment Rule
Andrew Gillen
March 17, 2022
This week marks the final round of the U.S. Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking session addressing the critical issue of accountability in higher education. One of the issues under consideration is the Gainful Employment Rule, an Obama-era regulation that sought to strengthen accountability in higher education.
Gainful Employment tried to identify college programs where students accumulated excessive student loan debt. The regulations would then cut off future federal financial aid for programs in which recent graduates did not earn enough to allow them to afford their student loan payments.
Higher education does need tougher accountability, and the 2014 gainful employment regulations got two important things right.
