Trump administration mulling new law cutting aid for low paying majors

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) The Trump Administration is considering cutting financial aid for undergraduate programs that don't pay as well compared to a high school graduate.

Under the Student Tuition and Transparency System, or STATS, and Earnings Accountability rule, undergraduate programs will be required to demonstrate that their graduates earn more than the typical high school diploma holder, and graduate programs will be required to demonstrate that their graduates earn more than the typical bachelor’s degree holder.

Hilbert College President Michael Cornell says it starts with understanding the mix of programs you have at your institution and what the what the employment prospects are in your region."For us in New York State, for example, when they identify like early childhood education or social work, the pay rates for those are different around the country. Educators in New York State are well paid as well. Well, they should be, so I don't have a lot of worries about education majors not being not being funded through student loans in New York State. That may be different in other states, but it's it's also somewhat difficult that I think we have to be careful about trying to predict too far into the future," explains Cornell.

Cornell says at Hilbert there are tons of law enforcement folks who are well paid when they graduate. "Crime scene investigation, forensics, business, and and that's that. Those are fairly common majors around Western New York, and even for for us, our liberal arts majors. Like if you're a history or philosophy major, they often go into like we have a three plus three program with UB. They go to UB and they go to law school, or they go and become teachers, or they go to UB's school, graduate school of social work," says Cornell.

Cornell advises students to find a job that will be fulfilling for them. "If you, for example, were going to get a bachelor's degree in in an early childhood education, and your goal is to work at a daycare center. You don't necessarily need a bachelor's degree to work at a daycare center. So maybe you want to think about that career aspiration. If you want the degree, you just may have to look harder to find it. But maybe the recognition that you don't necessarily need that degree to be in that profession, so I think what the federal government's trying to do, and try not to assign intent that may not be there, but I think they're trying to alleviate what they believe is a challenge of people getting educated for a position where the where the the expenditure and whatever the loan payment might might be doesn't justify the salary they're making. So it's certainly a it's a very different level of federal oversight than what higher education institutions have experienced in the past," explains Cornell.

What about lowering tuition? "We're like any other business, and there are costs inherent to running a college and having facilities that are well maintained," says Cornell. "A lot of us have interscholastic sport or have intercollegiate sports, so you have sports facilities that need to be maintained. Obviously, the costs of of hiring and keeping great people. We need great professors and people to staff our offices to populate a leadership team that helps shape the direction of a college," notes Cornell. "The extent that we can do that helps us, maybe bend the cost curve of a college education a little bit, so maybe we can keep it at the rate of inflation or less."

The Education Department will compare the earnings of graduates four years after completion to the median earnings of working adults ages 25 to 34 in the state where the college is located.

Regulations are not expected to start until 2027.