With just one meeting left, the Department of Education and an advisory committee tasked with hammering out the details of how to hold university programs accountable appear far from consensus.
The 13-member panel, composed mostly of state officials, think tank researchers and higher education lawyers, spent the past four days negotiating a new college earnings test rule called “Do No Harm” that would apply to all degree programs, as well as changes to existing gainful employment rules that would apply only to certificate programs and accountability for for-profit organizations.
The department’s proposal, which adjusts two accountability metrics and brings all programs into line with a “do no harm” standard, was largely unchanged in the first four days of negotiations.
Under the “do no harm” policy, all college programs except undergraduate certificates risk losing access to federal loans if they cannot prove that their students earn more than those with only a high school diploma, while the current version of gainful employment requires programs to prove that their graduates pass an earnings test and can reasonably repay their debt. Programs that fail either test will have all federal student aid revoked.
While officials have agreed to a series of smaller changes and said they are willing to consider larger changes, none so far address the key issues on which the committee divides — lowering the debt-to-earnings ratio and Pell Grant penalties.
If the committee fails to reach consensus, the department is free to propose any changes to the regulation it wants, which could include abolishing gainful employment altogether. The department met with various committee members in closed meetings Thursday, but it was unclear whether those talks would lead to a compromise or a flip vote.
“Consensus seems unlikely at the moment as negotiators remain divided over key provisions of the Ministry of Education’s draft text,” said Emily Lowndes, education policy adviser at the center-left think tank Third Way. “Anything is possible, these caucuses could be productive, but I would be surprised if they reach consensus.”
Agency representatives on the committee generally supported the overall plan, while consumer protection advocates questioned the department’s changes to gainful employment.
Reaching consensus at this point may require ED to make significant revisions to its original proposal.
“We have entered the counting phase,” said one committee member who spoke on condition of anonymity to maintain good faith in the negotiating process. “The question is whether ED believes it can bring some negotiators on board without abandoning their original proposal to combine gainful employment and do no harm.”
Department officials acknowledged differences of opinion but said they would work to bring committee members together.
“The department will be working on some language overnight based on what we discussed today at the various caucuses,” ED negotiator Dave Musser said at the end of Thursday’s meeting. “We plan to come back in the morning ready to share something because we recognize that alone may not be enough to get us to an agreement. However, we want to make it clear that we are doing everything we can to get everyone to an agreement.”
2 key questions, 2 key aspects
Education Department and agency representatives say the proposed plan levels the playing field, calling it a fairer and simpler way to hold people accountable. State higher education officials and employers, sometimes joined in, agreed that the plan was the most legally sound and could end years of political battles over higher education accountability.
But committee members representing taxpayers and legal aid organizations, as well as left-leaning research groups and consumer protection advocates, argued the department’s plan watered down existing standards, could put students at risk and could lead to legal challenges.
While negotiators representing students receiving Title IV aid and student veterans also expressed concerns about the gainful employment changes, committee member Tamar Hoffman, who represents legal aid groups, was the most vocal this week, saying there were “inherent problems” with the department’s current proposal.
“It doesn’t make sense that we would allow economically disadvantaged students to spend their lifetime of very valuable Pell-eligible resources on projects that the department deems insufficient to qualify for loans,” she said at the end of Thursday’s meeting.
Ideally, Hoffman and others would also like to see the debt-to-earnings test reinstated, although Pell appears to be the top priority.
Council member Preston Cooper, who represents taxpayers and public interests, voiced more opposition earlier this week, highlighting his analysis of department data showing ED’s plan would pay an estimated $1.2 billion in Pell dollars annually to projects that fail the profitability test.
By Thursday, however, several of Cooper’s smaller issues had been addressed through amendments and he appeared ready to support the department’s proposal. The changes include further clarity on the ability to separate gainful employment and “do no harm,” and if a court strikes down both tests, failed programs must meet an income test for at least two years before they can requalify for loans.
made some changes
While they generally support the department’s plan, agency advocates — notably negotiators Jeff Arthur, who represents for-profit institutions, and Aaron Lacey, who represents nonprofits — did try to change parts of the earnings test that they say are unfair, such as the age and work experience of high school graduates compared to college students, or the way rural institutions are held to the same standards as urban ones. So far, they haven’t been successful.
They had more success with an amendment that would allow current students who failed courses to maintain the loans they needed to complete their degrees. The department agreed to the change under several conditions: The program must voluntarily agree to close after a failed first year, terminate all freshman admissions, and develop a formal instructional plan for students who remain.
However, Hoffman said the change would only further weaken existing accountability standards.
“To me, it seems like a gaping hole trying to maintain eligibility for Title IV funding when institutions are actually not providing adequate services to their students,” she said. “There’s nothing here that prevents institutions from halting new admissions to failing programs [while] Stand up one at the same time [new] Projects within the same institution are generally similar. ” (Title IV of the Higher Education Act authorizes federal financial aid programs, such as Pell Grants.)
The regulations do include some restrictions on launching new programs, but Huffman and other student advocates from think tanks argue they don’t go far enough to prevent institutions from developing other similarly underperforming certificates and degrees.
By the end of Thursday’s meeting, the department had not publicly offered any concessions to address Huffman’s concerns about core changes to the instructional program or gainful employment.
But negotiations appeared to be continuing after the meeting. A department official told Huffman he was willing to talk during happy hour about what changes needed to be made to get her on board.
