National Urban League: Don’t Restrict Poor & Minority Students’ Rights to Crushing Debt and Worthless Degrees
Dig deeper into this morning’s Washington Post op-ed by Marc H. Morial, president and chief executive of the National Urban League, and you’ll find shockingly low expectations for how post-secondary institutions, funded almost entirely by federal student loans and grants, should serve poor and minority students. Morial writes:
The so-called gainful-employment rule…would establish fixed targets for student-debt-to-income ratios and new loan repayment rates that many traditional public and nonprofit institutions could not meet…. However, we are concerned that students who rely on federal loans might no longer have access to financial aid to attend the schools of their choice because the government will deny federal funds to students who attend for-profit institutions that can’t comply with the proposed rule.
Rather than advocate for programs that cost less, lead to better employment outcomes, or offer improved learning, Morial is defending the very worst institutions. The small percentage of programs that can’t comply
