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The controversial proposal would measure alumni income to determine whether a program can enroll students who take out federal loans.
About 44% of fine and studio art master’s programs in the United States could lose the ability to enroll students who rely on federal loans to pay their tuition, according to new guidelines proposed by the Trump administration.
The Department of Education (ED) proposal, first published in April, would ban master’s degree programs in the arts from enrolling students using federal loans if the program’s recent alumni earned less than the average salary of a bachelor’s degree holder between the ages of 25 and 34. Currently, the ministry assesses master’s degree eligibility based on the earnings of its alumni, compared to that of high school diploma holders aged 25-34.
The new criteria, proposed by the Trump administration as a means to penalize expensive and profit-oriented degrees that expect low average earning outcomes, could lead to a sharp decline in enrollment or a complete closure of some programs, according to the U.S. government. New York Times. The measure has sparked public outrage over the alleged “blacklisting” of arts schools, as evidenced by the nearly 9,000 public comments submitted to the ED.
Arts degrees are one of many higher education pathways that would be affected by the proposal. The ED estimates that 6% of the nation’s total courses would not meet the department’s new standards for federal lending. The latest restrictions build on the Trump administration’s strict caps on federal support for loans for professional degrees in health care positions largely held by women, including social work and nursing.
Under the guidelines, the federal government would consider a master’s degree program four years after graduation based on alumni earnings. If two consecutive cohorts earned no more than bachelor’s degree holders in each three-year period, the institution would be ineligible for federal loans for that degree.
The ED plans to restrict access of so-called “failing” programs to the Federal Direct Loans, which allow students and their families to borrow tuition at subsidized rates and include a grace period for repayment after graduation.
The department has until July to approve its new criteria, the Timesbut the guidelines may not go into effect until next fall. The agency has not yet responded Hyperallergic conditions request for comment.
The measure was met with fierce opposition from both public commentators and arts education institutions. In a statement shared with Hyperallergicthe School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City said that “success is not measured solely by income, but by the value of a person’s contributions to their community and society as a whole.”
“We strongly oppose a proposed means test, another part of the current administration’s efforts to dismantle higher education and disproportionately devalue the arts,” said the statement from SVA, which awards both bachelor’s and master’s degrees to all arts disciplines.
Others have raised concerns that the government’s proposed criteria did not necessarily take into account freelance or other income reported on 1099 forms. (The ED said self-employed graduates would be counted in its assessment, but did not mention which specific tax forms would be analyzed.)
Chase Kahn, an admissions manager at the New York Film Academy, called on the ED to explicitly include 1099 income in its calculations and create a “transparent” appeals process for loan revocation.
“Without these changes, the rule will harm the working-class and first-generation students it purports to protect,” Kahn wrote in public comments submitted to the department.
Robert Rosenberg-Kale, a member of the New York Film Academy, wrote in public comments that the proposed measure “treats arts and media programs as if their value were captured in a single early-career W-2 number.”
“In reality, these programs train the workforce for one of America’s largest export industries… A rule that takes federal student aid away from those programs is essentially a federal disinvestment in the workforce pipeline for that sector,” Rosenberg-Kale said.
