Student loan debt in the United States is approaching $1.7 trillion, and the Trump administration is moving to curb the crisis not by erasing obligations, but by cutting off taxpayer-backed loans to college programs that fail to deliver real economic value.
According to The Post Millennial, the Department of Education is advancing a rule that would deny federal student loans to degree programs whose graduates earn less than the typical high school graduate. Drawing on the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, the Department of Education (DOE) has outlined a performance-based standard that ties loan eligibility to post-graduation earnings rather than ideological fashion or academic trendiness.
The DOE explains that "if the typical graduate of an undergraduate program does not earn as much as a high school graduate, the program will no longer be eligible for federal student loans. Graduate programs must similarly lead to earnings above those of an average bachelors degree holder. Programs that routinely fail to provide students with a reliable return on investment would lose access to federal student loans, and in certain cases, Pell Grants." This approach reflects a basic conservative principle: taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize degrees that leave students worse off financially than if they had never gone to college at all.
Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent underscored that point, stating, "The Trump Administrations proposed accountability framework is grounded in common sense: if postsecondary education programs do not leave graduates better off, taxpayers should not subsidize them." He added that "This consensus-backed framework will drive meaningful change in postsecondary education, ending years of regulatory whiplash and addressing student debt that has left too many students worse off."
For years, many colleges and universities have treated federal loan dollars as a bottomless well, funding programs that are more about ideology than employable skills. Gender studies, critical theory, and queer studies have enjoyed the same access to federal loan money as engineering, nursing, or traditional humanities, even as tuition at many institutions has soared to $60,000 a year or more.
The market is already signaling that this model is unsustainable, as seen in the looming closure of Hampshire College in western Massachusetts at the end of the 2026 fall term due to financial strain.
Hampshires course catalog reads less like a serious academic program and more like a parody of progressive academia, with offerings such as Gender & Culture in Game Development, Wool, Freedom Dreams, Debates in History, The Politics of Pop Culture, Queer University Studies, The Virgin Mary (suggesting she is not Catholic), Indigenous Nihilism, Deviant Bodies, Critical Indigenous Studies, Beings Together (on posthuman and/or multispecies scholarship), and Sex in the Archive.
The New York Times recently reported that "a record number of student loan borrowers are in delinquency and default. Some are making the drastic decision to leave the country and abandon their loans." The paper highlighted a University of Oregon graduate in historical preservation who believes she was "misled" about the value of her degree, a story that has become emblematic of a higher-education system that overpromises and underdelivers.
Under the DOEs proposed rule, institutions would no longer be able to hide behind glossy brochures and inflated job-placement claims while steering students into low-value programs. Students would be blocked from taking on federal debt for degrees that do not lead to earnings sufficient to service that debt, forcing colleges either to improve outcomes or watch their enrollment pipelines dry up.
Part of the current default crisis stems from a cultural shift that treats student loans less as binding contracts and more as optional obligations, especially when politicians dangle the prospect of mass forgiveness. When he was president, Joe Biden announced the cancellation of $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower, a move that did nothing to address the underlying driver of the crisis: ever-rising tuition fueled by easy federal money.
At the time in 2022, Biden said that in his campaign for president, he "made a commitment. I made a comeback that we provide student debt relief. And I'm honoring that commitment today. Using the authority Congress granted the Department of Education, we will forgive $10,000 in outstanding federal student loans. In addition, students who come from low income families, which allowed them to qualify to receive a Pell Grant will have their debt reduced to $20,000."
He emphasized that nearly 90 percent of those eligible for relief earned under $75,000 per year, framing the policy as a matter of fairness, even as it shifted the burden of repayment from borrowers to taxpayers who may never have attended college.
By contrast, the Trump administrations framework seeks to prevent bad loans from being made in the first place, especially for programs that trap graduates in low-paying fields with little prospect of advancement. If implemented, the rule could force universities to rethink or even eliminate programs that cannot justify their cost, or else reserve them for students willing and able to pay out of pocket or with private support.
Such a shift would likely pressure institutions to cut bloated administrative costs, rein in tuition, and focus on disciplines that produce tangible economic returns rather than ideological activism.
Private foundations and donors who genuinely value niche or experimental fields would still be free to fund them, but without conscripting federal taxpayers into underwriting degrees that do not pay off.
The public now has an opportunity to weigh in on whether federal student aid should be tied to real-world outcomes instead of academic fashion or political priorities. The comment period on the proposed rule is open until May 20, and citizens can submit their views through www.regulations.gov, a rare chance for taxpayers and borrowers alike to demand accountability from a higher-education system that has long operated with little regard for cost, value, or results.
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