GOP Student Loan Law Spares Most Humanities Degrees From Cuts
A new Republican-backed law aims to hold colleges accountable, but most humanities and graduate programs still qualify for federal student loans.
Fears that a Republican-backed higher education accountability law would cut off federal student loan access for poetry, philosophy, or other humanities majors appear largely unfounded, according to a MarketWatch analysis of the new rules.
The legislation was designed to pressure colleges into producing graduates who can repay their loans, raising concerns among critics that programs in the arts, social sciences, and humanities would lose eligibility for federal aid. In practice, however, the vast majority of bachelor's and graduate degree programs meet the thresholds established under the new framework.
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The accountability measures work by evaluating whether graduates of a given program earn enough to justify their debt load. While certain lower-earning programs at specific institutions could face restrictions, the broad strokes of the law do not amount to a blanket exclusion of non-STEM or liberal arts fields at accredited colleges.
The findings suggest that students weighing degrees in the humanities are unlikely to encounter a sudden loss of loan access solely because of their chosen field of study, provided their institution and program meet the applicable benchmarks. Graduate programs, which often lead to higher earnings over time, also largely clear the bar set by the new rules.
Policymakers and higher education advocates are expected to continue scrutinizing how the rules are implemented and whether specific low-earnings programs at individual schools face real-world consequences. Continue reading at MarketWatch.com
