Colleges Urge Education Department to Delay Gainful Employment… Again
Jessica Blake
December 18, 2024
The leading lobbying group for colleges says the upcoming change in administration necessitates relief from the Jan. 15 due date. So far, the department isn’t budging.
Colleges and universities are once again urging the Department of Education to give them more time to comply with the reporting requirements in President Biden’s new gainful employment and financial value transparency rule. It’s the third time institutions have sought an extension over the past year. This time around, they want the department to push back the current Jan. 15 deadline to July 2025. That would mean financial aid and student outcomes data, which are vital to enforcing the regulations, wouldn’t reach the department until well after the end of Biden’s presidency.
The rule, finalized last year, seeks to hold career education programs accountable and provide prospective students with more information about whether college programs pay off. To do so, the department needs to collect more data from colleges, including enrollment, the total cost of attendance and the amount of private loans disbursed to students. With that data in hand, the department will then calculate whether graduates of all programs can afford their yearly debt payments and whether they make more than an adult in their state who didn’t go to college.
