UNITED STATES

A stricter gainful-employment test for college programmes

The Biden administration in the United States wants to use the earnings of adults who didn’t go to college as a new benchmark to gauge whether graduates of career education programmes are gainfully employed, writes Katherine Knott for Inside Higher Ed.

Advocates praised that decision, saying it would strengthen the gainful-employment rule by preventing programmes that result in low wages from passing the test. Critics of the move, including the association representing for-profit colleges, questioned the fairness of the earnings threshold and said the concept hasn’t been studied enough to warrant inclusion in federal regulations.

The metric, which was not part of previous versions of gainful-employment rules proposed during the Obama administration, will likely be a point of contention.
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site