Voters Overwhelmingly Support Guardrails on For-Profit Colleges, Finds TCF and Data for Progress Poll – The Century Foundation
Such policies would help level the playing field between for-profit colleges and prospective students, who are at a significant disadvantage in the college selection process and often have difficulty assessing the true value of a degree or certificate program before enrolling. The fact that each student has a seemingly limitless source of funds available through federal, graduate, and parent-plus loans incentivizes institutions to set tuition prices as high as possible, and sends a message to students that it’s a price worth paying. These characteristics of the U.S. higher education system, combined with the underlying motives of for-profit colleges, create a recipe for poor academic and career outcomes.
Institutions that take advantage of public resources in this way should be cut off from the source. New polling conducted by The Century Foundation and Data for Progress shows that voters support congressional action to make sure that higher education is a worthwhile investment for all students. Specifically, President Biden and the 117th Congress could:
- Restore the Obama-era “Gainful Employment” rule, which cut off programs from receiving federal funding if they routinely leave graduates with high levels of debt relative to incomes; and
- require colleges to spend a minimum amount on instruction and student supports. This could be achieved, for instance, through legislation stipulating that colleges which spend less than one-third of their revenue on instruction would be barred from spending federal funds on marketing and recruiting (a provision that was included in last year’s College Affordability Act).