Gainful Employment: State-by-State Data
The Gainful Employment Rule finalized in 2014, defined a longstanding requirement in the Higher Education Act that career programs “prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.” The rule established a method to ensure that graduates of these programs could earn enough to repay the student loan debt they took on to attend the program. By measuring the average debt and the average earnings of graduates, the rule set out three categories of programs: those that passed — meaning graduates earned enough to repay loans; those that failed — generally programs where graduates’ average loan payments exceeded 12 percent of earnings — and zone programs that were at risk of failing. Programs that failed had two years to improve or lose access to Title IV aid. Below is a list that include all passing, failing and at-risk programs within a state as of January 2017. Because the Trump Administration refused to enforce the rule this is the only year of available date. Although the GE rule worked, leading to lower tuition, more free trial periods and scholarships, and the voluntary closure of many failing programs, in July 2019 the Trump Administration rescinded the rule.
Click on a state to download the GE data.
