Sponsors (4)
The bill increases transparency and gives students, borrowers, and policymakers better long‑term completion data, but it imposes costs on colleges and risks reduced access or unfair stigma for nontraditional students if the new metrics are misused.
Students and prospective students will receive more detailed, comparable graduation and completion metrics (by student type and multiple timeframes), enabling better-informed college and program choice.
Institutions and policymakers gain greater transparency that can incentivize colleges to improve completion rates and expand support services for part-time and non‑first‑time students.
Borrowers and taxpayers will have clearer long‑term program effectiveness data to inform oversight, targeting of federal aid, and potential accountability actions.
Students who need more time to finish (e.g., working adults, part‑time or non‑first‑time students) may face reduced options if programs are avoided or penalized based on slower completion profiles.
Colleges—especially smaller or resource‑constrained institutions—will incur additional administrative burden and costs to collect, calculate, and publish expanded, disaggregated metrics.
More granular public data could be misinterpreted or used to stigmatize institutions that serve higher shares of part‑time or returning students, potentially reducing enrollment or funding unfairly.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Expands higher-education disclosure rules to require program-level completion rates at normal time, 150%, 200%, and 300% (with separate rates by student type) and consistent Department display.
Official title: Amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to provide for comprehensive student achievement information.
Introduced April 29, 2026 by John A. Barrasso · Last progress April 29, 2026
Requires colleges and the Department of Education to report and display student completion/graduation rates across multiple extended timeframes (normal time, 150%, 200%, and 300% of normal time for longer programs; corresponding timelines for shorter programs). The bill separates rates by first-time vs. non-first-time and full-time vs. part-time undergraduates and requires the Department to present each percentage with consistent visibility. Changes update Higher Education Act disclosure rules so institutions must publish each of those completion rates for each program and student type, and the Department must use and display those expanded timeframes consistently in its consumer information tools.