After unofficially releasing a proposal to eliminate Gainful Employment rules on Friday, August 10, 2018 the U.S. Department of Education officially published its notice to rescind the GE rule today, Tuesday, August 14, 2018. In an 80-plus page explanation, the Department pointed to AACS and many of our talking points as valid reasoning for the ruling. The Department believes the GE rule to be unfair to certain programs and students who wish to attend those programs, citing Cosmetology programs specifically. The 30-day period for comments begins today and ends on September 13, 2018. We urge our member schools to submit comments in support of this truly historic and meaningful announcement from the Department. AACS will be sending out instructions on how to submit your comments in the coming days.
AACS’s lawsuit to overturn the Gainful Employment rule based on erroneous earnings data was cited as the premise for the Department to revisit and ultimately withdraw the rule as drafted by the previous administration. The Department specifically noted that unreported and underreported income in cosmetology and beauty-related fields led to unfair calculations resulting in hundreds of programs failing the GE metric.
Furthermore, the Department now believes that the amortization of repayment with respect to diploma programs being limited to 10 years did not take into consideration a more reasonable repayment period. Thus, the Department, again using arguments made by AACS, believes a 20-year amortization period is the correct amount of time for the calculation of annual debt repayment.
In an effort to provide more transparency to those students and their families seeking information about a post-secondary program the department will post debt to earnings metrics for all post-secondary programs on the College Scorecard. The information contained on the College Scorecard will be based on calculations from the Department. Schools will no longer be required to provide data for this information.
AACS and its member schools should be proud to know that all of your engagement, donations, and your membership made our almost 10-year campaign to overturn this regulation possible. The lawsuit and all of our efforts have paid off in a huge way as Gainful Employment will no longer be the anvil over our heads moving forward.
Now more than ever, is the time to engage with AACS. We look forward to celebrating with you at the 2018 AACS Annual Convention & Expo!