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By Aleksandra Appleton
Chalkbeat
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Indiana lawmakers are moving to eliminate state college degrees that aren’t earning graduates enough on the job market, mirroring the federal government’s targeting of career programs delivering poor results.
SB 199 appears to only apply to a handful of degrees at nonprofit institutions like Ball State, Indiana University, and Ivy Tech, according to data on low-earning programs released by the U.S. Department of Education.
The legislation requires state colleges and universities to eliminate low-earning degrees as defined by the federal Higher Education Act, unless the state Commission for Higher Education grants an exemption.
This means graduates of bachelor programs must have earnings above those of a typical high school graduate, or around $33,000 in Indiana, for the program to keep operating and to receive federal student loan funding under corresponding federal changes. A similar standard applies to graduate programs.
SB 199 aims to prevent students from taking out loans to attend programs that will make it difficult to pay back those loans — or to earn a living, supporters said.
“Some forms of higher education out there simply don’t help students achieve economic mobility,” said Preston Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute, who has worked with U.S. Ed on the earnings standards. “Students take on debt and end up making less than a typical high school graduate.”
But critics of the legislation have challenged whether it’s the state’s role to dictate what students can study in college.
“I think we’re going down a dangerous path when we start eliminating degree programs because we don’t think they make enough money,” said Rep. Tonya Pfaff, a Terre Haute Democrat during a committee hearing. “Part of those degree programs is the ability to take singular classes out of those degree programs, which I believe makes a student more well-founded and better equipped to handle the diversity of the future careers that we will be offering.”
SB 199 is not the first time Indiana has recently tried to trim the number of degrees at universities and colleges. Last year, the state’s higher education institutions cut hundreds of degree programs — though these largely had low enrollments or were inactive, officials said.
Meanwhile, changes at the federal level aim to hold undergraduate certificate programs, most offered at for-profit colleges, to the same standard. It’s not clear whether Indiana would have to pass further legislation to reflect those changes.
More than half of all students enrolled in low-earning programs who receive federal student aid are in these certificate programs, said Jordan Matsudaira, co-director of the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center, or PEER, which studied which programs are likely to fail an earnings test. Among the students enrolled in failing undergraduate certificate programs, 85% attend for-profit colleges and 56% are in cosmetology programs, according to the study.
Advocates for these programs have pushed back, saying that the department’s methodology doesn’t fully reflect income for their graduates.
SB 199 is a wide-ranging education bill that also includes language about minors’ social media use. It passed the House Education Committee Wednesday and is headed to consideration by the full House next.
In January, the U.S. Department of Education released its preliminary list of degree programs that would fail to meet the new federal earnings threshold. The final list won’t be available until 2027, and programs would have to fail the earnings test multiple years in a row before losing federal loan funding.
The preliminary list identifies 16 degree programs at 11 Indiana colleges and universities — though some told Chalkbeat that they don’t offer the degrees named. It also identifies 21 undergraduate certificate programs, primarily in the cosmetology field.
One of the larger degree programs is Ivy Tech’s associate degree in Teacher Education and Professional Development Specific Levels and Methods, which currently has 549 students enrolled, according to the college.
A representative of Ivy Tech said this degree was intended to be a transfer program for individuals looking to go into teaching and complete a four-year teaching degree. The school has not yet discussed what will happen with this program due to the federal rule changes.
Below is the U.S. Department of Education’s list of Indiana programs that are predicted to fail to meet the federal earnings rules and lose eligibility for federal loans.
It includes undergraduate certificate programs that aren’t currently a part of the Higher Education Act, many of which would not be captured by SB 199, since they’re not offered by state institutions.
Associate Degrees
Bachelor’s Degrees
Master’s Degrees
Undergraduate certificate programs
Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
