Higher-Ed Groups Decry Proposed Federal ‘Earnings Test’ That Could Decimate Arts Education
US higher-education groups and advocates criticized the Department of Education’s proposed Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS) and Earnings Accountability rule, which would evaluate programs largely by graduates’ earnings. Under the proposal, programs that fail the earnings benchmark in two out of three years could lose eligibility for federal student loans, and in some cases other aid such as Pell Grants, raising concerns for music, visual arts, and filmmaking programs. The new benchmark would compare graduates’ earnings to the median salary of workers aged 25 to 35 with a bachelor’s degree, replacing an earlier comparison to high school–educated workers and eliminating a prior debt-to-earnings metric. The Association of American Universities (AAU), representing institutions including Harvard, Columbia, and Yale, filed comments warning that wage data alone cannot capture the public value of many disciplines and objected to what it described as missing stakeholder input, including from the financial aid community.
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This story was covered in Protests, Lawsuits, and the Art Market’s Secrets