Bill proposed to protect ministry students from losing federal funding

Two senators introduced the Religious Education Fairness Act Tuesday to protect students studying for ministry and other religious vocations from losing access to federal funding under a new earnings test.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proposed the bill to protect programs classified as theology and religious vocations or philosophy and religious studies from the Working Families Tax Cut Act’s “Do no harm” provision. This act puts federal student aid at risk based on graduates’ earnings, which negatively affects ministry students, the senators said.

The Religious Education Fairness Act uses the existing Title IX religious exemption framework to identify eligible institutions and protects covered programs from losing direct loan eligibility.

What is the “Do No Harm” provision? When Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, it included several changes to Title IV of the Higher Education Act. One of these was the “Do no harm” provision, which evaluates undergraduate and graduate programs through an earnings test to determine their eligibility for federal loans. The test requires undergraduate programs to demonstrate that their graduates earn more than the typical high school diploma holder, while graduate programs have to show that their graduates earn more than the typical bachelor’s degree holder.

If a program’s graduates fall below the benchmark for two out of three consecutive years, the program loses access to the Title IV federal Direct Loan Program. The school’s program would also be deemed a low-earning outcome program, and the college would have to disclose that the program was considered failing.

How does this affect people in ministry? Philip Dearborn, president of the Association for Biblical Higher Education, said ministry work is not a salary-driven career. In a press release, Lankford said that a student who feels called to pastor a church or serve as a missionary should not lose access to student aid because Washington measures the value of that calling by a paycheck. Lankford added that the Religious Education Fairness Act protects those students pursuing ministry from a test that was never designed for them.

Dig deeper: For more information on the “Do no harm” rule, read Liz Lykins' story.