Washington just sent shockwaves through the higher education system, and American families are the clear winners. For years, traditional colleges and universities have functioned as untouchable monopolies. They have skyrocketed tuition costs, increased their administrative budgets and happily pocketed federal financial aid checks. They did all this without ever proving that their degrees led to meaningful careers.
No longer will colleges and universities escape without any accountability.
Recently, the Department of Education under the Trump administration proposed a new accountability system. It is designed to put an end to the low return on investment that has plagued students and their parents for generations.
Under this new student tuition and transparency system, institutions must pass a basic income premium test. Colleges and universities must prove that graduates of their bachelor’s degrees earn more money per year than a typical high school student. If they cannot meet this benchmark, the institution will lose access to federal student loans and possibly Pell Grants.
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Trump’s rules would force colleges to prove that their graduates earn more than high school graduates, or the institutions would lose access to student loans.
This proposal is not a radical political idea. It’s economic common sense. As Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent rightly noted, if post-secondary education programs do not make graduates better off, taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize them. More importantly, parents don’t have to empty their retirement accounts to afford them.
Higher education has told high school students to blindly pursue campus prestige for too long. We have given young adults tens of thousands of dollars in student loans to obtain a degree that the modern job market simply does not value or need. The devastating result is a generation drowning in student loan debt, returning to their childhood bedrooms and possessing degrees that cannot guarantee a living wage.
As president of Southeastern University, I view this proposed regulation as the reset that American higher education desperately needs.
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This is a win for the family sitting at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to pay for college. It’s a victory for the 18-year-old who is told to borrow without being told the consequences. And it’s a victory for taxpayers who have subsidized broken institutions for too long.
A degree is only valuable if it enables a young adult to build a stable life, support a family and make a meaningful contribution to the economy. At Southeastern University, we understood this shift years ago. We did not wait for a federal mandate to hold ourselves accountable. We have purposefully developed an education model designed for the modern workforce, working directly with employers, tailoring academic programs to real economic demand and ensuring students gain practical, career-ready experience long before they cross the graduation stage.
Education must function as a bridge to economic mobility. It should not be a trap to years of insurmountable debt.
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The higher education institute will fight this proposal. Count on it. The institutions that fueled this crisis will be the loudest voices against this change. They will dress their opposition in the language of academic freedom and institutional independence. But protecting institutions that consistently fail their students is not academic freedom. It is institutional cowardice.
As president of Southeastern University, I view this proposed regulation as the reset that American higher education desperately needs.
We cannot bow to that pressure. This policy is a direct defense of the American family and the American student. The federal government is finally demanding that colleges make good on their expensive promises. For too long, institutions have been rewarded only for existing and not for achieving results. That model is broken, and this proposal begins to fix it.
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The future of American higher education belongs to the schools that are willing to be accountable, the schools that offer affordable, practical degrees and actually prepare graduates for success in the job market.
It’s time to stop protecting broken institutions and start protecting the students they were built for.
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