How Gainful Employment Changed Higher Ed
Katherine Knott
April 14, 2023
The once-revolutionary idea, abandoned under former president Trump, is coming back. Experts think Biden’s gainful-employment rule will be tougher than previous versions and could lead to more programs failing.
hen the Obama administration released its plans to measure whether some graduates were gainfully employed, Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” was the top song on the radio, Apple was on its fourth iPhone and for-profit chains ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges were still enrolling students.
Nearly 13 years later, former president Obama’s vice president is gearing up to release his own version of gainful employment regulations this month. Higher education lobbyists and analysts expect the proposed rule to be tougher than the one the Obama administration ultimately put into place, leading to more programs failing—and possibly losing their access to federal financial aid.
