The wrong measure

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

Christian schools are sounding the alarm on a new provision from the U.S. Department of Education, which went into effect earlier this month.

The new provision will evaluate degree programs based on the income students earn in the years after graduation. If college graduates’ income isn’t higher than high school grads, the programs could lose federal financial aid.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The Education Department said the rule prevents graduates from being financially “worse off than if they had never gone to college.” The Department cited the federal student loan portfolio–which stands at $1.7 trillion. These are debts with rising rates of default and delinquency. But many schools have doubts.

Philip Dearborn is the president of the Association for Biblical Higher Education. And he says the regulations could hit programs like pastoral studies, missions work, and children’s ministry hard.

PHILIP DEARBORN: If the provision is to protect students from getting jobs that don’t pay well, I mean, think about ministry, right? Our students aren’t coming to these institutions to get a good salary in life, right? They’re doing it to answer God’s call.

BROWN: An earnings test will be used to evaluate both undergraduate and graduate programs and determine if they can receive Title IV federal Direct Loans.

Grads from undergraduate programs must demonstrate that four years after graduation they earn more than the typical high school diploma holder. Those who hold graduate degrees must show they earn more than the typical bachelor’s degree holder.

EICHER: If a program’s graduates fall below the earnings benchmark for 2 out of 3 years in a row, it loses access to federal loans. Also, the program is marked as “failing.”

Dearborn said the test oversimplifies what makes a degree program successful.

DEARBORN:If you measured my salary four years after graduation from a Bible college, it was low. It was low. But look where I am in life now. God used all kinds of circumstances, and I was never in need.

BROWN: Compounding the problem, the Department of Education initially estimated that 53% of bachelor’s degrees for religion and religious studies would be considered “failing” under the test. That number jumped to 89% for master’s degrees.

But the Department’s latest data showed a dramatic drop and estimated less than 10% of higher education religious programs are “failing”.

DEARBORN: It’s hard to get our hands around which set of statistics are right.

Dearborn says his organization, which represents 165 institutions of biblical higher education, is trying to convince Congress to reverse course.

DEARBORN: Congress created this bill. Congress can undo this bill.

EICHER: Ken Kemper is the president of Grace Christian University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And he says religious degrees are both an investment in a future salary and in vocation.

KIM KEMPER: We have 155 students pursuing religious degrees in the fall of this past year. 
Those students took out, along with their parents, $625,000 worth of student loans. I would hope that every one of those would say, ‘It is a good investment,’ as my students pursuing religious studies at Grace Christian University are being prepared for a life calling.

The Department of Education issued a final rule to acknowledge some of Christian schools’ concerns.

It adjusted the regulation’s effect on programs that haven’t participated in the Direct Loan program for the last five years. These programs no longer risk losing access to Pell grants and work study programs for failing the test.

BROWN: But Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Greg Baylor told WORLD via email that this is not a big victory. Many religious studies programs will still be affected.

Baylor added that the test still burdens the religious rights of the institutions and their students.

For campus pastor Danny Garcia, the new rule threatens the students he serves and the degree program he graduated from.

DANNY GARCIA: The government is using sort of a corporate yardstick to measure what is ultimately a spiritual calling on somebody’s life.

Garcia now works for his alma mater, Grace Christian University. He said his brother helped lead him to Christ and later encouraged him to pursue a career in ministry.

GARCIA: When it comes down to somebody’s calling in their lives, something that is deep and meaningful, I would not want something as fickle as money to prevent them from following the calling on their lives.

EICHER: The Department of Education will collect and publish data for two years until loan-loss sanctions take effect. Institutions will learn if their programs are failing as soon as 2027.

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