Should gainful employment be applied across higher ed?
Rick Seltzer
March 10, 2022
Most programs failing a broadly applied rule would be at public and nonprofit colleges, not for-profits, says one researcher at a conservative think tank.
Negotiations are scheduled for next week over the gainful employment rule, a regulation intended to make sure graduates of postsecondary career education programs can work and pay back their student debt.
The U.S. Department of Education’s latest rule proposal is notable for a new mechanism that would compare college graduates’ earnings against those of high school graduates. But the regulation has a much longer history — and disagreement has often centered on which institutions the rule regulates, as well as how it regulates them.
Gainful employment’s previous iteration took effect at the end of the Obama administration, only to be unwound in short order by the Trump administration. It drew support from groups that want to hold colleges accountable for student outcomes, but for-profit colleges criticized it because it largely focused on their sector.
