Sponsors (2)
The bill increases transparency about program-level earnings and loan outcomes to help students, parents, and policymakers make better choices, but it risks providing outdated or volatile metrics and imposes administrative costs that could confuse consumers and burden institutions.
Students, prospective students, and parents gain program- and institution-level data on earnings, loan burdens, and Parent PLUS/Graduate PLUS borrowing and repayment, enabling more informed enrollment and borrowing decisions.
Institutions, policymakers, and researchers get greater transparency into graduate- and parent-loan outcomes, increasing institutional accountability and allowing targeted policy and research efforts to reduce defaults and improve repayment outcomes.
Students and families may be misled because reported median earnings are measured with about a 10-year lag and can fail to reflect recent program improvements or current labor-market conditions.
Small programs or inconsistent data definitions can produce volatile or misleading rates that harm institutions' reputations and confuse students comparing programs.
Colleges, universities, and the Department of Education will face administrative costs to collect, validate, and publish detailed program-level loan and earnings data annually, imposing burdens on institutions and taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires the College Scorecard to publish annual program- and institution-level earnings, federal loan balances by loan type, and default/repayment rates.
Official title: Improve transparency and accountability for Federal student loan borrowers.
Introduced September 3, 2025 by Jon Husted · Last progress September 3, 2025
Requires the Department of Education to expand and update the College Scorecard (or its successor) so the public can see detailed program-level and institution-level student loan, debt, earnings, default, and repayment metrics. The new data fields include median earnings with a 10-year lag, median federal loan balances by loan type for completers, and default/repayment rates for students, graduates (Graduate PLUS), and parents (Parent PLUS). The Secretary must publish these measures annually, enabling prospective students, families, policymakers, and institutions to compare outcomes across programs and schools and to better understand post‑completion earnings and federal loan burden.