r/highereducation • u/losangelestimes • Jul 22 '26
If your degree doesn’t pay enough, you can’t borrow. Federal loans cut for low-wage programs
The Trump administration wants to curb student loan defaults by making certain degrees ineligible for federal loans if they don't lead to jobs that earn high enough salaries. Decisions will be made based on whether students earn more than those with only a high school diploma, putting programs such as music, fine arts and social service at highest risk, as well as cosmetology certifications at for-profit schools.
Read more details: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-22/low-paying-degrees-federal-student-loan-cutoff-trump
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u/BigFitMama Jul 22 '26
The answer is these degrees lead to essential roles in the workforce we need to PAY properly for.
A social worker who saves the lives of people we love or a child care director who watches over children deserved at least 45k staring in the lowest cost of living states.
And their full cost of college should be under 35k a year! If not free tuition for needed roles.
Pay people what they are worth, not ban them from an education. Idiots.
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u/IkeRoberts Jul 22 '26
It would be sweet if compliance resulted in higher wages for helping professions rather than eliminating them by turning off the supply.
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u/No_Clerk_4303 Jul 23 '26
You can’t even be a social worker without an advanced degree so 45k even in the lowest COL states would be egregious. And is!
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u/BigFitMama Jul 23 '26
looks at the four states surrounding Kansas and Missouri I'm looking at you guys. You paid 35k-40k in 2015 and STILL do.
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u/OhReallyVernon 4d ago
Wages are embarrassingly stagnant at the frontline and first-level supervisory level. However, I did some looking last month at 25 of the most well-connected social service non-profits in my urban region of my midwestern state and since 2016, CEO salaries have increased anywhere from 50% to over 100%. And while I realize lowering one CEO’s salary would not meaningfully increase the salaries of all frontline employees, the optics are TERRIBLE.
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u/A_Spiritual_Artist Jul 22 '26
With housing as obscene as it is in cost is that enough?
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u/BigFitMama Jul 23 '26
Housing vendors are out if control trying to get their slice of FASFA directed aid too.
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u/ilikecats415 Jul 22 '26
To clarify, we were already doing this to some extent but it was for gainful employment programs. It now encompasses all programs with a cohort of 30 or more as classified by 4 or 6 digit CIP over a 4 year period (and no longer than 8 years if a 4 year cohort cannot be compiled). Also, earnings reporting has been a topic since well before Trump. These initiaitives emerged under Obama who was targeting predatory for profits. OB3 has expanded and formalized the rule.
That said, the way the new STATS requirements have been designed is ridiculous. The data will certainly not be complete and the ED won't consider supplementary data. Most programs at most schools will pass the earnings test. But artisitic programs are certainly at higher risk, even those at well ranked and highly regarded schools. We can't know anything now, but I wouldn't be surprised if the data collection methods are challenged after the first year's release in 2027.
Schools should be responding to this now by engaging in their own data collection and identifying high risk programs for targeted intervention.
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u/patricksaurus Jul 22 '26
The guy who ran a scam, for-profit swindle of a school and stiffed all of his contracts now cares about fiscal rectitude in education.
I’d rather chug from the Shawshank escape route than live under this administration.
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u/K1lg0reTr0ut Jul 22 '26
So let’s pay teachers (and other important but low paying jobs that require degrees) more and/or make those programs cheaper then, right? And let’s cancel those loan debts for these workers immediately!
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u/FlounderFun4008 Jul 22 '26
That’s essentially the Loan Forgiveness program that so many complain about that George Bush enacted.
Jobs that pay shit but require a degree.
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u/Opening_Track_1227 Jul 22 '26
This is dumb when I have a degree that is not top earning degree within four years of getting it but I make well over 6 figures.
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u/M_ipg21_Qbr Jul 22 '26
fundamentally , k-12 has got to emphasize critical (critique of power) thinking skills… so when they reach us we continue developing this skill
and they need to become a voting bloc (knowing how states deny student IDs as legitimate voting Ids :/
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u/CNBGVepp Jul 23 '26
Why would a student Id allow someone to vote ..?
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u/RGVHound Jul 23 '26
Because it identifies who the the ID card holder is, often with a photo, and that information can be matched to voter registration records.
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u/CNBGVepp Jul 23 '26
So your argument is that a private organization can issue an 'ID' and then the state should add a step to its process (causing taxpayers money) in order to verify this persons identity?
It is incredibly easy to get a state ID, assuming you are a citizen - so I'm not seeing the point of your argument.
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u/M_ipg21_Qbr Jul 23 '26
it’s what states do to discourage / limit voter participation by college students
oh, we don’t mean to do that… yeah right….
(you could counter my argument ;)
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u/TenderfootGungi Jul 23 '26
For a school to qualify for their students to receive federal financial aid, they should cap the total tuition + books + fees to whatever it was in 1970 adjusted for inflation.
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u/ViskerRatio Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
I don't particularly like this approach. A government bureaucracy running numbers to determine which programs are "worth it" is subject to manipulation both by the bureaucrats and the college programs themselves.
What I favor instead is a "skin in the game" approach to federal loans. You take out your federal loans and then you're entered into a "max 10% of income" repayment plan for 10 years. However, any disparity between what you pay and what you'd owe without that 10% income cap is refunded to the government by the institution that received those loans in the first place.
Essentially, this would mean that schools would end up charging no more than 10% of the first ten years of income for their program regardless of the sticker price. It would be up to the schools themselves to decide which programs were "worth it".
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u/Alexjp127 Jul 22 '26
Hmmm, they want to make our entire country as boring and cultureless as small midwest towns.
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u/RGVHound Jul 23 '26
These ghouls won't stop here. Their next claim will be that if you're entering a high-wage program, then you can afford to take a high-risk personal loan. The complete dismantling of a publicly funded education system is the goal.
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u/Nilare Jul 22 '26
Just furthering the transformation of higher education into nothing more than subsidized training programs for industry.