The Trump Administration is refuting a Los Angeles Times report stating that it finalized an upcoming rule requiring schools to prove that the loans students take out for majors of their choice are actually helpful to their career prospects.
In a post quoting The New Republic, the Department of Education claimed that the report was “fake news at its finest,” adding that it was “holding colleges accountable for leaving students worse off than if they never enrolled.”
“Too many graduates report delaying major life milestones like buying a home or starting a family. Why? Because low return-on-investment programs saddled them with unmanageable debt that was never going to translate into a real-world job,” the DoE wrote.
Among the fields that would be hardest hit under the new rules are the arts, social work, religious studies, cosmetic certification programs and journalism. The Trump Administration, through a series of executive orders dating back to the first months after Trump returned to office, has targeted the humanities and cultural institutions, including a takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, attacks on the Smithsonian and more.
While the maneuver is viewed as “accountability” on behalf of the administration, others view it as another example of targeting education through financial standing. According to The New Republic, the Department of Education will use IRS data to track students’ salaries 4 years after graduation and compare them with those of recent high school graduates. If those college graduates’ salaries fall below that baseline, those degree programs would be ineligible for future loans.
Per the Times, an estimated three percent of all bachelor’s and advanced degree programs at public and nonprofit institutions would fail such a standard, compared to nearly one-third of programs at for-profit colleges. An estimated five percent of programs would fail to meet the standard overall, per the Times’ reporting.
In May, the Trump Administration cut student loan access for students seeking degrees in social work, a move the National Association of Social Workers called a decision to “let Americans suffer.”
“Social work is a profession,” NASW CEO Anthony Estreet said. “It requires a graduate degree, supervised clinical hours, and state licensure. When you make it harder for people to afford that education, you don’t just thin out a workforce; you leave real people without care.”
He added, “We’re in the middle of an opioid epidemic and a mental health crisis, and the Administration’s answer has been to make it harder to become a social worker. You can’t treat this as acceptable. We won’t.”
Some conservatives are also questioning the motives of the Department of Education’s decision-making. However, the Department remains steadfast in continuing to carry out one of Trump’s early tenets: the overhaul of the federal student loan system.
“Federal student loans are not a welfare program for failing college programs,” the Department of Education wrote on X. “American students deserve education and training pathways that prepare them for the workforce – and transparency about programs that will never pay off.”
The new rules regarding student loans are set to take effect in 2027.
