Institutions argued against judging a program’s value by how much graduates earn.
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Religious colleges warned the Education Department that its proposed new accountability metric, which essentially sets a minimum earnings requirement for graduates, could devastate them, in part because their core programs would fail.
About 9 percent of undergraduate religious studies programs and 6 percent of graduate ones would fail the test that compares students’ earnings after they graduate to those with only a high school diploma, according to department data. Several commenters, responding to the agency’s proposal in the public comment period, said the impact could be far higher than those numbers show.
The Association for Biblical Higher Education Commission on Accreditation shared ED data in its comment showing that 53 percent of religious studies bachelor’s programs and 89 percent of religious studies master’s programs would fail the metric. Programs that fail the earnings test in two consecutive years could lose access to federal student loans, and some could eventually be cut off from the Pell Grant as well under the department’s proposal.
