Statement of Sameer Gadkaree:
“TICAS has long supported a strong gainful employment (GE) rule that protects students from low-quality, high-cost programs and protects taxpayers from wasting money on programs that leave students worse off. We welcome the new final rule, which furthers these goals in important new ways by balancing accountability where it is most needed with greater transparency to prospective students, especially if they risk taking on excessive debt in certificate and graduate programs.
“With this rule, the U.S. Department of Education will bolster students’ confidence that they will have adequate earnings and sustainable debt loads after graduation.
“By pairing a debt-to-earnings measure with an earnings premium requirement, the new GE rule will encourage low-performing programs to improve and provide a measure of accountability for poor performance. It will also tie eligibility to participate in taxpayer-funded federal financial aid programs to clearing the rule’s requirements. As TICAS’ work has shown for years, this rule is a crucial safeguard for communities of color, who are disproportionately enrolled in high-cost, low-value programs at for-profit colleges, and all too often face inequitably funded college options.
“The result of an extensive, careful rulemaking process and substantial public input, we are confident this new rule will once again provide students nationwide with the protections they need when pursuing postsecondary education and training. We congratulate the administration on meeting this milestone and look forward to the rule’s implementation next year.”
