Opposing view: Commit every college to full transparency

Imagine defining the academic quality of a doctor’s or minister’s education by the ratio of his debt to income in his third year of work. That metric would condemn their college academics to a garbage bin. But that was the faulty premise of the Gainful Employment regulation imposed exclusively on our nation’s career education programs.

The Department of Education is seeking to replace such faulty metrics with publication of median earnings and debt for every program at every college. This would allow prospective students to look at potential careers, earnings and debt of graduates in similar programs at every college. This may be the most significant consumer protection for students ever advanced by any education department.

This proposed rule commits every college to full transparency. It would provide all prospective students with a common set of understandable metrics. The nation’s accreditors would again be responsible for ensuring academic quality — in far better evaluations than one bad formula.

Today, more than 6 million jobs remain unfilled due to a lack of qualified workers. About 65% of jobs require post high school education. Yet the Gainful Employment regulation sought to impose debt/earnings metrics on only those engaged in career programs.

Regional income disparities make such metrics unreliable. For example, the same medical assistance program resulted in a difference of $10,000 in annual income for a job in Louisiana versus Massachusetts. Yet the Boston program passed the test and the other failed — when rural Louisiana probably needs more medical professionals than Boston!

The average federal loan for proprietary two-year career schools is $8,400. Their graduation rate is 60%. These outcomes provide women, minorities and adults with a bridge to a job with real skills, real wages and a real chance at life in America’s middle class. This is good public policy!

Steve Gunderson, a former Wisconsin congressman, is president & CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities, a trade association.