Federal Earnings Rule Puts Arts Degrees Under New Pressure
A proposed Education Department rule could make it harder for music, visual arts, and other liberal arts programs to keep access to federal student aid, shifting the government’s focus from educational value to graduate pay. Under the plan, known as the Student Tuition and Transparency System, or STATS, and the Earnings Accountability rule, programs that miss the earnings benchmark in two out of three years could lose eligibility for federal student loans.
The proposal would raise the standard significantly. Instead of comparing graduates’ earnings with those of working adults who hold only high school diplomas, the new framework would measure them against the median salary of workers ages 25 to 35 with bachelor’s degrees. The department would also eliminate the debt-to-earnings metric used in earlier accountability regulations, relying primarily on earnings outcomes calculated by the government.
That change has drawn concern from liberal arts institutions and education advocates, who argue that the rule could penalize fields whose public value is not reflected in wages. In a comment filed on the proposal, the Association of American Universities, which represents institutions including Harvard, Columbia, and Yale, said the framework raises “serious concerns” for disciplines whose graduates contribute value that wage data alone cannot capture. The group also objected to what it called a “stark omission of stakeholders,” including representatives from the financial aid community.
A preliminary analysis of Education Department data suggests that several prominent programs could fail the updated test, including Yale University’s master’s programs in visual arts and music, Harvard University’s master’s program in museum studies, and the Juilliard School’s undergraduate and graduate music programs. The department’s calculations also indicate that 90 percent of religious studies graduate students and 100 percent of recipients of culinary certificates would fail the new benchmark.
The proposal arrived alongside last year’s domestic policy package, and the department received nearly 8,800 public comments on the rule. A July deadline has been set to finalize the guidelines, leaving arts schools and universities waiting to see how far the new accountability system will reach.
