I & I Editorial BoardThe only thing more surprising about the Education Department’s proposed rule on college loans is that it took this long for common sense to prevail over the interests of Big College.
On Friday, the department issued a “notice of proposed rulemaking” that would, if implemented, block taxpayer-subsidized student loans for worthless degrees. To say that this is needed is a vast understatement.
As it stands, there is nearly $1.7 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, and “fewer than 40% of borrowers are in repayment, and nearly 25% of borrowers are in default,” notes The Federalist’s Breccan F. Thies.
Why? Because far too many students were suckered into borrowing money – with the loans heavily subsidized by taxpayers – for college degrees that guaranteed them nothing, other than delaying adulthood by four years while piling up debt.
Colleges and universities have made out like bandits from this scheme, which lets them create bogus majors, pad their payrolls with administrative jobs, and hike tuitions massively, knowing that taxpayers would cover the costs.
Joe Biden made the problem worse by telling students that they’ll never actually have to pay off their college loans.
President Donald Trump is, thankfully, trying to end this grift. The proposed rule would require “colleges and universities to be accountable for how much their graduates earn after leaving their programs, cutting off the institutions from accessing federal student loans if they leave them worse off financially,” says Bloomberg Government.
Once in place, colleges would have to prove that their graduates are making more than those who didn’t bother to go to college. Those obtaining master’s and doctoral degrees would have to earn more than those who just got a bachelor’s. If schools fail to do so for two years in a row, those programs would be cut off from federal loans.
We suspect that right now, colleges across the country are looking at their course offerings and panicking. Do they really think queer studies, social justice, peace studies, creative writing, anthropology, and various other pointless majors will pass muster? To say nothing of the create-your-own-majors that some colleges allow.
“The Trump administration’s proposed accountability framework is grounded in common sense: if postsecondary education programs do not leave graduates better off, taxpayers should not subsidize them,” said Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent in a press statement.
We say “Amen!” to that.
The rule still needs to be finalized, but we can’t see any reason why the Education Department wouldn’t do so, or who could be opposed to it. Trump is taking other steps to tighten the rules on federal college aid, which now exceeds $275 billion a year, according to the College Board, and mainly just fuels tuition inflation.
This problem has festered for decades. So far, Trump is the only president who’s had the cajónes to take it on directly.
And for that, every taxpayer should be grateful.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I think a good place to start would be those colleges whose economics professors signed petitions against Trump’s tariffs. If they like free trade and competition so much, cut off all federal funding to those colleges. Make them live by the same rules they want applied to America’s working class.
Outstanding ! Long overdue.
In case anyone is wondering, Gender Studies, just to name one, IS a WORTHLESS degree.
Sadly, some Boasberg will simply wave his magic gavel and ensure ALL of the fake degrees are still covered…
You mean I can’t borrow money for my underwater basket weaving degree.
How about this? How about the government get out of the student loan business and return it to the private sector where it was before Manchurian Barry had government take it over?
The monies this article is speaking about was never private. It was government money administered by private companies. Private loans for tuition are still available. They are just more difficult to qualify for, and more expensive because well, the lender, unlike the government needs to make a little money on the loan. Students also don’t go that route nearly as often as the government backed loans are easier to get, usually have a longer payback time and a lower payment.
The proposed rules mostly stem from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which requires what is stated in your article, for associate degree programs and up. The Act does not mention shorter-term certificate programs, but the proposed rules hold those programs (such as certificate programs in cosmetology, early childhood education, and medical assisting) to the same earnings standard as bachelor’s degree programs. Students in certificate programs borrow far less in student loans, and generally their debt burdens are manageable even though they earn less. Having trained people in these fields is important. So this part of the rulemaking will be harmful.
This move – like many others world wide – equates “worthwhile” degree with “traing for a job”. There’s no room left for general education. Even a degree in Gender Studies can teach research skills, critical thinking and reasoning, interpretation, report writing and other transferable skills. Goodness knows we need more critical thinking in the world today!
That doesn’t mean taxpayers should support it. (And I should know, since I got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s in “strategic communications” — without borrowing a dime.)
Taxpayers shouldn’t lend money for loans unless the societal benefit can be measured monetarily.
If you think that critical THINKING, as opposed to critical THEORY, is a feature of a Gender Studies program, you are mistaken. The oppressor/oppressed framework is built into the very existence of such a program.
Opposition to this restructuring of the College Loan program will come from the left, because many of these “useless” degrees are not useless to the left. They’re intended to produce not workers, or even academics, but rather activists; people whose “job” is to form political blocks. The icing on the cake, as it were, is that their political opponents are financing the whole deal.
BTW, I disagree with the author in including anthropology in the list of useless degrees. There is a place for such a program, but much shrunken, which I believe will occur -the supply will reduce to meet the demand, demand being academics and academic researchers, National Geographic authors, etc.
Maybe, but we don’t need “Gender Studies”.
easier solution…. require colleges to cosign any and every loan. if the student can’t/won’t repay the loan, the college has to eat the loss. do this and watch the list of degrees offered shrink like a deflating balloon.
An excellent idea!
Maybe some of the focus should be on the ridiculous cost of college today in addition to the degrees conferred.
The high cost of college is being driven largely by all the federal subsidies, including low-interest loans.
Seems to me that loans should be for only STEM and perhaps the large umbrella of law, medicine, and education degrees.
We are not in need of more lawyers and should never subsidize them!
very informative articles or reviews at this time.
Is there not some blame that should be assigned to the parents? They are
the ones who let their kid(s) undertake these worthless degree plans.
“40% of borrowers are in repayment, and nearly 25% of borrowers are in default,”
This seems easy – take the 25% in default. Sort them by names and colleges. If you have more than 10 people on the list – that degree, no longer qualifies for student loans at that college. The ONLY way to change that fact is if the COLLEGE pays off the outstanding loans for those students with that degree. They can reinstate that degree and get funding, but again, if more than 10 graduates land on the default list with that degree, the loans for that degree are again suspended till the college pays it off.
You can have the program, and even have people getting loans get that degree, but the ones that do, need to have a high chance of gainful employment down the road. I.e. be the most extraordinary and talented at it.
Sounds like a good idea, but in practice, I think you create a never-ending cycle of students gaming the system on an ongoing basis. The only way this would work is if the default and the liability remain on the individual’s credit report until the loan is repaid to the University.
The way to fix this is by making the Universities the grantor of the loan.
It would give them the incentives to limit cost (especially administrative), as well as guiding students to a productive degree because of the schools desire to be repaid.
Finally, it would get the government out of the business of college loans.
Joe Biden got one thing right. Why are students and parents paying ridiculous amounts for useless degrees.
Very helpful – and also demonstrates the fundamental problem with government subsidies of anything.
Who determines “value”? By what standard?
Look at K-12. School unions won’t teach math, grammar, English. All those have economic value.
But what about history, civics, logic? They have *cultural* value without which our Republic simply cannot survive.
Look around us. School unions don’t *teach* those, of course, but they do *train* pupils by browbeating them with ideology.
The result?
Harvard grads vote for socialism in NYC.
They might be brilliant, but they’ve been trained to feel, not taught to think.
Next steps?
Get US Government out of education. The more local schools are the better they are.
Get political unions out of education. They have big money but no brains.
Let parents decide what schools teach. In California in the 1860s, local parents voted every year what teachers to hire and what teachers to fire.
Then along came John Swett. A Unitarian, he hated Christians, especially Catholics. He seized control over California’s schools.
Naturally, he founded what is today the most powerful union there – California Teachers Association, CTA.
They still confer a prize in his name every year.
They do not teach independence and knowledge – bot are their enemy. Instead, they teach control by their ideology and obedience to it.
Fire them all.
This seems to take too long, have too little effect, and be too easy to reverse by another administration. Just shift the burden of defaulting over mostly to the colleges. Especially the ones with high endowments – it’s obscene that they aren’t 100% underwriting their students’ loans for the degrees they are offering. But even the smaller colleges – if the kid can’t/won’t pay, let the college take a big piece of the loss. That will get immediate reform to the degrees offered, the entitlement mentality instilled, and who gets admitted.
I don’t like this idea as it is too complex to administrate effectively. Better would be to get colleges to participate pretty strongly in any collection problems. No need to decide if Queer studies or anything else provides enough value. Let colleges manage their business but let them know that since the money is really going to them, they have real responsibilities around it. Improve collections, don’t bother with social and cultural narratives.
If you apply for a loan to get, say, a pickup truck for work, you have to show the lender financial data to assure the lender that you have the means to pay the loan. Student loans should be no different.