True story: Back in the day, when the entire university-level "(insert agenda item) Studies" corral litter was just taking off, a casual friend of ours, who was in her mid-40s told us she had decided to go back to college. We knew she had only a high school diploma and hadn't been able to get a career started, so we took the announcement as a sign that she was finally getting her act together.
That is, until I asked what she planned to pursue a degree in. "Women's Studies," she said. My wife and I exchanged a look, but this person wasn't a close enough friend that we were willing to debate the wisdom of that decision. And I might add, the institutions that offer these degree programs are engaging in fraud, pure and simple; the only legitimate purpose of these institutions is to produce young adults with marketable skills, and in this, they are failing, with these classes and degree programs.
OK, let's be honest, there was no wisdom in that decision by our casual friend. Spending tens of thousands of dollars on an utterly useless degree - worse, borrowing tens of thousands of dollars on useless degrees - is a catastrophically dumb idea. But that's not stopping plenty of young skulls full of mush from doing so. Now, at least, the Trump administration Department of Education is proposing a rule change that will hold colleges and universities accountable for these horse-squeeze degrees.
Under the proposed rule, if the typical graduate of an undergraduate program does not earn as much as a high school graduate, the program will no longer be eligible for federal student loans. Graduate programs must similarly lead to earnings above those of an average bachelor’s degree holder. Programs that routinely fail to provide students with a reliable return on investment would lose access to federal student loans, and in certain cases, Pell Grants.
“The Trump Administration’s proposed accountability framework is grounded in common sense: if postsecondary education programs do not leave graduates better off, taxpayers should not subsidize them,” said Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent. “This consensus-backed framework will drive meaningful change in postsecondary education, ending years of regulatory whiplash and addressing student debt that has left too many students worse off.”
Note that this is, for the moment, a proposed rule. There would be a lot of details to work out, not the least of which is figuring out how to quantify everything. But it's a step in the right direction.
An Issues & Insights editorial has some numbers:
As it stands, there is nearly $1.7 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, and “fewer than 40% of borrowers are in repayment, and nearly 25% of borrowers are in default,” notes The Federalist’s Breccan F. Thies.
Why? Because far too many students were suckered into borrowing money – with the loans heavily subsidized by taxpayers – for college degrees that guaranteed them nothing, other than delaying adulthood by four years while piling up debt.
Colleges and universities have made out like bandits from this scheme, which lets them create bogus majors, pad their payrolls with administrative jobs, and hike tuitions massively, knowing that taxpayers would cover the costs.
Under the Biden administration, these young skulls full of mush were told — by the administration — that they wouldn't have to pay back these loans. In other words, the cost of the fraud would be passed on to the taxpayers. Enough is enough.
Read More: Young People Are Avoiding College for 'Secure Trade Jobs'
Poll: By 2-1 Margin, Voters Say College Education Not Worth It
At least one source puts the recovery time — the time at which one's income results in a net gain over the cost of a degree — for a "Cultural Studies" degree at 36.5 years. The average income for one of these degrees? Under $40,000. A good carpenter, electrician, plumber, or auto mechanic can make twice, three times that amount, if they work hard, and they don't have to borrow from $30k to $130k on a degree that's worth less than the paper it's printed on.
So, yes, if they can make it happen, this is a step in the right direction of higher education reform. A better idea? Decouple the financing of education from government altogether. Let prospective students, should they need to borrow money for education, present themselves at a bank or lending institution, present their education record to date, their planned degree program, and their prospects for post-graduation income. Let the bank or lending institution analyze the odds of a loan being repaid in full and on time, and approve or refuse as appropriate. That would clean up all the Ethnic Underwater Dog-Polishing degrees in short order. The one government restriction I would place that would hit the TURBO button on degree reform? Make the colleges and universities cosign all student loans. All of them. Make them liable for producing graduates who can't get jobs because they were offered a useless degree program.
Our system of higher education is badly broken. Parts of it still work; our oldest granddaughter just went through a pre-med program, was accepted to a prestigious medical school, and is looking at substantial income after getting her M.D. — and she hasn't had to borrow all that much money, because she actively pursued every academic scholarship she could find. But the nonsense degree programs, those cynical, fraudulent programs that have sucked in too many feather-headed youths, those have to go. This proposed rule takes us a step closer to that.
Higher education needs to get back to its core purpose: producing young adults with marketable skills. And if any young skull full of mush wants to study 9th-century Portuguese sculpture, let them go to the library. It's free.
