Feds Say Marketplace Will Expose Bad Colleges, But States Find It’s Not So Easy

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos plans to help students pick a college and a major by publishing more information about how much they might earn and owe after graduation. But, as experience from nearly two dozen states illustrates, the plan will be challenging to implement, and it’s unclear whether teenagers and other prospective college students will use the new information to make decisions.

The consumer information push is related to the Education Department’s decision to scrap the Obama-era gainful employment rule, which cut off funding for career-focused colleges if they saddled students with too much debt. The rule was aimed largely at for-profit colleges; the department announced in January 2017, just before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, that such schools made up 98 percent of the 800 or so schools out of compliance with the regulation.

Now, instead of regulating such institutions, the Education Department hopes a marketplace approach will help all students make informed decisions about where to enroll — possibly by requiring colleges to post earnings and debt data on their websites, and also by revamping the College Scorecard, a federal website built to help students compare colleges.

The department has announced it will add earnings data by major or program of study, and it’s possible other changes will be made as well.

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