New Federal Regulations and What They Mean for Your Graduate Programs
On June 4th Dr. Maren Wood (Director and CEO of the Center for Graduate Career Success) hosted a partner webinar on the newly proposed regulatory changes under the Student Tuition and Transparency System, the challenges graduate students are facing in today’s job market, and recommendations for engaging students in career support.
For the past two years, we’ve been sharing updates about the Biden-era Financial Value Transparency (FVT) framework and its potential impact on graduate education. Under the FVT, programs were to be evaluated on a debt-to-earnings ratio, and the government planned to publish that data to help prospective students make informed decisions.
Importantly, the FVT was designed to provide information to students — not to penalize graduate programs.
Last month, the Department of Education proposed rules that substantially overhaul that framework.
Under the new Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS), graduate programs will be evaluated on alumni earnings four years after graduation. Programs where alumni do not out-earn bachelor’s degree holders in their state in two out of three consecutive years will lose Direct Loan eligibility.
In this session, Dr. Wood covered:
The proposed shift away from the Financial Value Transparency framework toward an earnings-based accountability model, and what it means for graduate programs
The economic and hiring context your students are navigating right now, including the decline in entry-level positions
Recommendations for engaging graduate students in career support, particularly master’s students
We spent a good amount of time on the institutional gap in career support for master’s students because this population will be most affected by the shift toward earnings-based accountability. Most institutions have invested far more in doctoral career support, for understandable reasons. Master’s students are harder to reach, often online, and move through programs quickly. Regulatory pressures, however, are increasingly landing harder on master’s students and programs, and that makes this institutional gap worth addressing for the long-term viability of graduate programs.