PPIC Higher Education Center – Page 12 – Public Policy Institute of California

Reforming Remedial Education in Community College

Reforming developmental, or remedial, education is essential to improving student outcomes in community colleges. Why? Developmental education is supposed to help underprepared students, but currently it may be one of the largest impediments to success. As PPIC research has shown, 80 percent of incoming California community college students—and a disproportionate share of students of color—enroll in at least one developmental course, but relatively few successfully move on to complete a college-level course. The good news is that over the last few years, there has been a tremendous amount of support for reform.

Reforming Assessment and Placement
Assessment and placement reforms generally involve moving away from the traditional reliance on standardized tests and toward a more holistic measure of prior achievement such as high school course grades. Research finds that test-based assessment and placement policies assign many students into remediation unnecessarily. Indeed, students’ high school performance as measured by GPA and course grades—even when self-reported by students—is a much more accurate indication of student readiness. A recent report by the California Acceleration Project shows that the use of high school measures has dramatically broadened access to and completion of college-level math and English courses, significantly reduced equity gaps, and has had little impact on course success rates.

But implementation is key. Several decisions will determine the impact of new policies in increasing access to college-level courses and reducing unnecessary remediation: What GPA or course grades will qualify a student for access to college-level courses? If a college uses multiple measures, how will they be combined into a single placement decision? Will colleges accept students’ self-reports of their GPA and grades? Furthermore, as campuses expand access to college-level courses, it is critical that they provide supports to students who need to brush up on their math or English skills. Guidance provided by the Multiple Measures Assessment Project, the California Acceleration Project, and others will be central to helping colleges make these important decisions.

Reforming Developmental Courses
Changes to developmental coursework can also help more students progress to college-level courses. Some colleges are transforming traditional developmental education into accelerated pathways that are relevant to students’ programs of study using the design principles of guided pathways introduced by Bailey, Jaggars, and Jenkins, which allow colleges to cluster hundreds of programs of study into a handful of broad areas (e.g., liberal arts, STEM, business, and health). For example, in math, there are statistics, quantitative reasoning, and STEM/precalculus pathways. In English, reforms often entail integrating reading and writing courses and contextualizing classes within broad fields of study. Additionally, colleges have shortened developmental pathways or offered concurrent support courses instead of requiring students to take prerequisites. This reduces the number of students who drop out because they fail to reenroll in long developmental course sequences, while providing just-in-time support to help students succeed in college-level work.

Across the state, PPIC has found that a growing number of developmental education reforms are underway—led by the California Acceleration Project and the Carnegie Foundation, among others. These initiatives are well positioned to implement reforms using the guided pathways framework. Emerging research suggests that providing accelerated math pathways that are more aligned with students’ programs of study helps improve early academic outcomes, including completion of college-level math. Less is known about the impact of developmental English reforms on student outcomes, but recent evidence on compressed and co-requisite English courses is encouraging.

Research and Policy Opportunities
Support for developmental education reform and guided pathways at community colleges has been spearheaded by the multimillion-dollar investments made through the Community College Chancellor’s Office, the governor’s annual budget, and legislative proposals, including AB 705 and SB 539. As colleges continue to adopt and scale placement and course reforms, it will be imperative to assess students’ perspectives and outcomes to determine if new policies improve student success and reduce equity gaps.

Learn more
Read the report Preparing Students for Success in California’s Community Colleges
Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center

PPIC Polling and the Immigration Debate

This post is excerpted from a presentation to the PPIC Board of Directors and guests on September 12, 2017, in Los Angeles.

One of the most important issues for Californians in the first year of the Trump administration is changing federal immigration policy. Immigrants are a significant presence in California, and even more so in Los Angeles County. Los Angeles, the state’s most populous county, is home to more than 10 million people, including more immigrants than any other California county. Twenty-seven percent of California’s population is foreign born—about twice the US percentage—while 35% of Los Angeles County population is foreign born. Moreover, about 2.6 million undocumented immigrants—about a quarter of the total number in the US—live in California. More than 800,000 of these undocumented immigrants live in Los Angeles. Major shifts in federal immigration policy that are under way thus have profound impacts on California and Los Angeles.

Since January, PPIC has been monitoring state and local responses to changing federal immigration policy through our public opinion polling. We have asked 11 questions about federal immigration policy in four monthly surveys, each involving 1,700 California adults, including more than 400 adults from Los Angeles County, interviewed by landline and cellphone in English or Spanish. The margin of error is +/-3% for California and +/-6% for Los Angeles. While the country is politically divided on immigration issues, we have found some bipartisan agreement in California. Here’s a sampling of our findings this year:

Undocumented immigrants living in the US: In our January PPIC Statewide Survey, 85% of Californians and 89% of Los Angeles residents agreed that undocumented immigrants who are living in the US should be allowed to stay legally. These results are consistent with earlier PPIC surveys. Moreover, solid majorities were in favor of state and local governments making their own policies and taking actions, separate from the federal government, to protect the legal rights of undocumented immigrants in California (65% California, 73% Los Angeles).
Border wall, travel ban on residents of six Muslim-majority nations: In our March PPIC survey, when asked about building a wall along the entire Mexico border, more than 7 in 10 were opposed (72% Californians, 76% Los Angeles). In the same survey, about 6 in 10 (58% California, 63% Los Angeles) opposed the president’s revised travel ban involving six Muslim countries.
Immigration enforcement and schools: In our April survey, 46% of Californians and 55% of Los Angeles residents said they are very concerned that increased federal immigration enforcement efforts will impact undocumented students and their families in their local public school districts. More than 6 in 10 (65% Californians, 73% Los Angeles) favored having their local public school district designated as a sanctuary safe zone in order to protect its undocumented students and their families from federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Worries about deportation, impact of enforcement on business and jobs: In our May PPIC survey, 30% of Californians and 34% of Los Angeles residents said they worry a lot that someone they know could be deported as a result of increased federal immigration enforcement. About half said that increased federal immigration enforcement will have a negative impact on businesses, jobs, and the economy in their part of California (49% California, 53% Los Angeles).

As the federal policy landscape shifted this year, PPIC Statewide Surveys continued to find majority support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who are living in the US: in our March survey, 68% of Californians and 71% of Los Angeles residents remained supportive. In contrast to the political divide in the rest of the nation, strong majorities across parties in California continue to agree that undocumented immigrants who are living in the US should be allowed to stay legally.

California’s path forward on immigration is a work in progress, as is the case in other areas that are undergoing federal and state policy changes. Moreover, there are uncertainties about federal actions such as the fate of the DACA program—which protects young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation—the imposition of fiscal sanctions on sanctuary states and cities, the ban on travel from Muslim countries, and the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border. As we have seen, California’s immigration policymaking is occurring in the context of strong public opposition to federal shifts, high levels of public concern about how these shifts are affecting undocumented immigrants and our regional economies, and strong support for actions by state and local governments to protect the legal rights of undocumented immigrants. At PPIC, we hope to foster conversations about immigration that lead to a better future for all Californians.

Learn more
Find out more about the PPIC Statewide Survey.

California’s Dream Act

As the federal government moves to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, California is continuing to support the higher education aspirations of undocumented students. California’s Dream Act is a set of laws intended to lower the cost of higher education for certain undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children and raised in California. Thousands of California students have benefited from the program so far.

College can be especially expensive for undocumented students. For tuition purposes they are not technically California residents and therefore are not eligible for in-state tuition. Public colleges and universities charge extra tuition for nonresidents: currently an additional $28,000 per year at UC and $6,000 per year at CSU. In addition, undocumented students are not eligible for federal financial aid, such as Pell Grants or federal loans, leaving college out of reach for many who are low-income.

California passed AB 540 in 2001, which waives the nonresident portion of tuition for undocumented childhood arrivals as long as they meet certain criteria, including spending three or more years in California K‒12 schools, graduating from a California high school, and promising to apply for legalizing their immigration status as soon as they are eligible to do so. In addition, the state passed AB 130 and AB 131 in 2011, which allows state and institutional financial aid to be given to students eligible under AB 540.

Undocumented students cannot file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to apply for federal and state financial aid for college. This means that many do not have access to Cal Grants, one of the state’s main forms of financial aid. Instead, those who are eligible can apply for Cal Grants using the California Dream Act application.

Of all Cal Grant offers in 2014‒15, about 3% have been made to California Dream Act applicants. Of those eligible for the awards, both FAFSA filers and Dream Act filers have similar GPAs. However, those obtaining a Cal Grant through the state Dream Act application were more likely to come from families with parents without college degrees and with lower family incomes.

A student’s DACA status has no bearing on the California’s Dream Act, so AB 540 students will continue to pay in-state tuition rates and can apply for and receive state and institutional aid to help lower the cost of college, even if the federal DACA program ends. However, without a work permit these undocumented students still cannot work legally in the US, even if they obtain a degree from a California college or university. The approximately quarter of a million Californians covered by DACA will still be subject to deportation without further federal legislative or executive action. That uncertainty could keep otherwise qualified students from earning a college degree.

Learn more

Read “DACA and California’s Future” on the PPIC Blog.

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

DACA and California’s Future

President Trump’s administration has announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to avoid deportation, obtain work permits, and continue their schooling. California is home to about 223,000 “Dreamers,” as DACA recipients are known, more than one-fourth of the national total. According to estimates cited by EdSource, about 70,000 Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants attend public colleges in California. The president gave Congress six months to come up with a legislative solution to address the issue before the decision takes full effect. Because California is home to a large share of the nation’s immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, changes in federal immigration policies are particularly important in the state.

In California, as in the rest of the nation, a central economic challenge over the next couple decades will be to ensure an adequately sized and skilled workforce to meet the demands of a growing economy. This challenge is especially daunting in the face of unprecedented increases in the number of retirees. As the baby boomers—a large group that is highly educated—exit the labor market, California and the nation will be hard pressed to find an adequate supply of workers to replace them and help provide for their healthcare and other needs. According to the California Department of Finance, over the next 15 years, the number of people age 65 and over will increase by 3.4 million, while the number of young adults age 20 to 34 will decline by almost 200,000. Requiring the Dreamers to leave the country will deepen this decline. Many of the older adults, about one-third, have a bachelor’s or graduate degree. Largely as a consequence of this demographic certainty, PPIC has projected that the state will see a shortfall of 1.1 million workers with at least a bachelor’s degree by 2030. Were it not for highly educated immigrants, the skills gap would be even larger.

The solution to this demographic, economic, and educational challenge is to make sure that more young Californians acquire the skills necessary to replace those exiting the labor market and to ensure that California’s economy can continue to grow with high-skilled and high-wage jobs. Increasing the number of young Californians going to and graduating from college is essential to closing this workforce skills gap. Because DACA recipients must be high school graduates or attending school, the program helps increase the number of Californians who are on the educational trajectory we need. The large number of Dreamers in college is evidence that they hold promise for helping the state meet its future need for educated workers.

Learn more

Read Higher Education in California: Addressing California’s Skills Gap

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

New CSU Admissions Policy Could Increase Access, Enrollment

Overcrowding at some California State University (CSU) campuses has had a serious effect on the system’s ability to increase the number of students graduating with bachelor’s degrees. This is an issue with broad implications for the state and for young Californians: PPIC research has shown that the CSU system will need to produce nearly half a million additional college graduates by the year 2030 to meet economic demand in California.

The state’s most recent budget aims to alleviate overcrowding at CSU, a problem that stems from an enrollment policy dating back to 2000. Under this policy, campuses established local admissions criteria that went beyond systemwide requirements for high-demand academic programs like nursing, business, and psychology. Currently, 6 of the 23 campuses are what CSU calls “fully impacted,” meaning that admissions requirements for local students in every major are significantly higher than those required systemwide. At Fresno State, 32 of its 33 programs are impacted. With higher admissions requirements, impacted programs often turn CSU-eligible students away. However, the rest of CSU campuses have fewer than half of their academic programs impacted. Six campuses—Bakersfield, Channel Islands, Stanislaus, East Bay, Chico, and Dominguez Hills—have less than 10% of their academic programs impacted. Unfortunately, unlike the University of California system where eligible applicants to an oversubscribed campus are referred to open campuses, CSU applicants who were eligible systemwide but did not meet the admissions criteria of their chosen impacted major or campus were denied admissions and not referred to a non-impacted campus.

In 2015–16 alone, CSU estimates that the system turned away nearly 30,000 eligible applicants due to overcrowding. While this did not necessarily prevent all of these students from attending college (many are likely to have attended other four-year colleges or community colleges), the practice of denying admissions to eligible students creates an unnecessary barrier in the education pipeline. Students who begin their higher education at a community college, for example, are less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree.

The 2017–18 state budget requires that CSU change its admissions process. Under the new policy, campuses must give first priority to local students applying to impacted programs and must automatically redirect eligible applicants who are denied admission to similar programs at other CSU campuses that have space. Given that a recent study commissioned by the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research found that nearly 41% of high school students are eligible for CSU systemwide admission—an increase of nearly 10 percentage points since 2007—the creation of a referral pool could provide students with additional information about nearby campuses that are not impacted, allow them to attend those campuses, and give them a chance to pursue the major of their choice. Furthermore, the creation of this referral pool could more efficiently disperse enrollments across the system’s campuses, increase capacity, and improve bachelor’s-degree attainment in California as a whole.

Learn more

Read center director Hans Johnson’s testimony about the workforce skills gap and CSU’s role in filling in.

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center.

California’s Partisan Divide on Higher Education

New national polling shows a big divide has opened up between Democrats and Republicans on higher education. A Pew Research Center poll taken in June shows that a majority of Republicans and those who lean Republican (58%) think colleges and universities have a negative effect on the way things are going in the country, while a vast majority of Democrats and those who lean Democrat (72%) think colleges and universities have a positive impact. This is a big change from two years ago, when majorities in both parties said higher education institutions had a positive impact on the direction of the nation.

Is there a similar partisan divide over higher education in California? The PPIC Statewide Survey found a similar divergence over the past few years when we asked a different question: Is the state’s public higher education system generally going in the right or wrong direction? In 2016, California Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to say the system is headed in the wrong direction. This marked a change in the five years since we’d last asked this question. When we asked the question in 2011—toward the end of the recession and after large tuition increases—Californians in both parties overwhelmingly said higher education was moving in the wrong direction. Unlike national polling, which shows a shift in Republican opinion, PPIC surveys show a shift in the opinions of Democrats, who have become more positive, while Republicans have remained about the same.

Californians’ responses to other survey questions about higher education point to longer-term partisan divisions. Republicans have generally been more likely than Democrats to say that the overall quality of education in California’s public colleges and universities is a big problem or somewhat of a problem. Views about the direction and overall quality of public higher education are reflected in attitudes about California’s three public higher education systems. Currently about half of Republicans say that each of the systems—community colleges, California State University, and University of California—are doing an excellent or good job. More Democrats—about three-fourths—express this view.

Partisans have also historically differed on higher education funding. Compared to Republicans, Democrats are more likely to say that higher education does not receive enough funding, and Democrats are generally willing to pay higher taxes to support higher education.

Interestingly, there is some evidence that Californians’ views about the importance of college for individual success differ along party lines. A majority of Democrats (68%) say a college education is necessary for a person to be successful in today’s working world, while a majority of Republicans (72%) say there are other pathways to success. It is also true, however, that Californians in both parties have become more optimistic about the chances of success without a college degree since 2011—when the state was recovering from recession.

Finally, there are some areas of agreement. We find that members of both parties generally think that college affordability is a problem and students have to borrow too much money. Perhaps most significant is our finding that overwhelming majorities of both Republicans and Democrats say that the state’s system of higher education is important to California’s economic future and quality of life.

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Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center

UC Admissions: What the Numbers Mean

The University of California’s recently released admissions data shows that about 62% of all applicants were admitted to the system for fall 2017. There are big differences among campuses: admission rates range from 16% at UCLA to 72% at UC Merced. And UC expects that less than half of admitted students will enroll.

The proportion of admitted students who enroll is called the yield rate. The yield rate is a product many factors, including which campuses students are admitted to and whether they are California residents. UC’s systemwide yield rate was around 45% last year; at each campus, the yield rate for nonresidents (27%) is much lower than that for residents (54%). The Berkeley and LA campuses have the highest yield rates, with almost half of their admitted students enrolling. Only about one in five admitted students enroll at the other campuses.

Where do students who decide not to go to the UC campus(es) that admitted them end up enrolling? UC generally faces competition from private schools in California and public and private universities in other states. Students also choose to go to a local CSU or plan to start at a community college, and low yield rates at some campuses are a byproduct of competition among UC schools. The average UC applicant for fall 2016 applied to four UC campuses, and the average admitted student was admitted to 2.3 campuses.

A UC school with higher admissions rates isn’t necessarily serving a larger number of Californians. The LA and Irvine campuses are about 50 miles away from one another and receive about the same number of resident applications. In 2016 UC Irvine admitted more than twice as many California residents (37% of applicants) as UCLA (18%). However, students admitted to UCLA are about twice as likely to enroll there, which leaves the two campuses with about the same number of entering students.

The story is similar for nonresidents. Because UC’s yield rate for nonresidents is about half the yield rate for residents, a larger share of nonresidents are admitted: in 2016, nonresidents made up 33% of admitted applicants but only 19% of enrollees.

Campuses generally have state support and classroom space for a certain number of students and use their knowledge of yield rates to reach that target. Campuses with lower yield rates make many more admission offers, and all campuses make offers to more nonresidents than they plan to enroll.

That admissions strategy can be a problem for less competitive institutions. It is impossible, after all, to know if any given student will decide to enroll, and a small change in the yield rate can have big consequences. For example, while UC Irvine’s yield rate was 23%, a small jump to 25% would have resulted in more than 400 additional enrollees. Officials at Irvine maintain that over-enrollment was not the reason for their decision last month to rescind offers of admission to about 500 students (the campus has since readmitted many of those students). However, it is easy to see how high-stakes admissions decisions based in part on predictions of applicant behavior could quickly lead to either over- or under-enrollment.

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Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center

CSU Ends Remedial Courses

Last fall, more than one in three students starting as freshmen at the California State University (CSU) system had to take a remedial course in either English or math before they could take college-level courses in those subjects. These remedial courses generally cover material from high school and don’t count toward a degree—even though they cost the same amount and require as much class time as a college course. But this situation is about to change. Starting in 2018, all CSU freshmen will be placed in college-level courses. Those who are underprepared will receive some kind of extra support.

This is the most recent in a series of CSU reforms intended to place freshmen students into college-level courses. In 2004, the Early Assessment Program (EAP) began giving 11th graders an indication of their readiness for CSU and identified the courses they would need to complete their senior year to avoid remediation. More recently, incoming students who were required to take remediation were enrolled in Early Start, which used summer courses to prepare students for college coursework in the fall. The elimination of all remedial courses is a big change: while previous programs aimed to prepare students for college-level work before their freshmen year, CSU will now focus on helping students complete college-level work regardless of their preparation.

This policy change comes as CSU embarks on its new graduation initiative, whose goal is to raise graduation rates and close achievement gaps by 2025. What kind of impact might the elimination of remedial courses have on college completion? Students who require remediation in one or more subjects are about half as likely to graduate within four years as their peers who are ready for college-level work. The share of CSU students identified as needing remediation has been dropping for some time, and as remediation rates have fallen, six-year and four-year graduation rates have increased.

The general decline in remediation indicates that students have become better prepared over time, either in K–12 or through programs like Early Start. Though eliminating remediation will not affect how prepared students are when they start college, there is still reason to believe CSU could see an increase in graduation rates. As PPIC’s study of community college remediation showed, long remedial course sequences leave students many points of exit and can be barriers to success. Indeed, about 13% of CSU students who entered remediation in 2015 failed to complete remediation and were not at the university by their second year. With the end of remediation at CSU, students will have fewer potential exit points, they will be able to earn more college credits in their first year, and many may experience more success in college-level courses due to additional support. These potential benefits could help more students graduate and shorten their time to degree.

In addition to eliminating remediation, CSU is making changes to the Early Start program and course placement policies to further prepare students and help them find the right classes. These changes could help narrow the graduation gap between races. In 2016, only about 18% of white CSU students required some form of remediation, while about half of Latino and about 60% of African American students needed remediation in at least one subject. If these new policies do increase graduation rates, many traditionally underserved students may benefit.

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Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center
Read the PPIC report Preparing Students for Success in California’s Community Colleges

Is College Worth it? What Graduates Say

As college registration deadlines approach, thousands of Californians are making important decisions to invest in their education and long-term career prospects. The vast majority of parents (85%) hope their child earns at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the PPIC Statewide Survey. But how do graduates see it? And how well-informed are their decisions?

The good news is that most people who earn degrees believe their investment was worth it. According to national survey data, 71% of those who earned an associate degree and 73% of those with a bachelor’s degree agree their education was worth the cost. Going beyond the economic value, a large share also find engagement in the work they do. In fact, a sizeable share of associate- and bachelor’s-degree holders report deep interest in their work (41% and 38%, respectively) or say that they have the ideal job (29% and 26%, respectively).

Although having an “ideal job” may be a very high bar to achieve, these results suggest that a majority of degree earners are not terribly satisfied or engaged with their work. Indeed, in a wider-ranging national survey conducted recently, a majority of college graduates indicate that they would change their degree, their college, or their major if they could do it again. Among associate-degree holders, 23% would seek a different degree—more than double the share of bachelor’s-degree holders who say the same. But graduates with bachelor’s degrees are not entirely satisfied with their choices either: 40% would study a different major (compared to 36% among associate-degree holders). And the survey finds curiously similar responses regardless of a person’s income level. Though higher-income Americans are slightly less likely to regret their college choices, a large fraction of them (35–45% for those with income over $100,000) would still make a different choice.

These results confirm that while college pays off, there is room to improve how well-informed prospective students are about their colleges, majors, and degrees. On this blog, we’ve written about the economic value of college credentials and how it varies across fields of study. We’ve also highlighted the need for data to inform student choices, given the sizeable financial commitment entailed.

Among the state’s public colleges and universities, California’s community colleges are ahead of the curve in providing information online about institutional performance, future salary, and more. Other institutions should follow suit. However, the survey results above suggest it is perhaps equally important to design courses and programs that ensure students can efficiently and effectively identify the degrees and majors best suited to them. Indeed, this is one of the tenets of the guided pathways movement taking place at community colleges across the country and in California. To inform and improve the college decisions of Californians, it is critical that these practices expand beyond community colleges, so that K–12 schools and four-year universities are also working to ensure students have comprehensive information when choosing their pathway into a career.

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Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center

Federal Policy Shift on Private For-Profit Schools

The US Department of Education is moving toward changing two regulations designed to protect students at private for-profit institutions. The regulations were revised or instituted by the Obama administration in response to allegations of fraud and predatory practices, as well as low graduation rates and high levels of student debt. Secretary Betsy DeVos says they are burdensome for institutions.

The regulations cover more than 250 private for-profit institutions in California; they affect about 245,000 current students and tens of thousands of former students.

DeVos is establishing rulemaking committees to review both regulations:

The Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDR) allows victims of misleading and predatory practices to apply for federal loan forgiveness. California attorney general Xavier Becerra says that about 38,000 Californians who took out loans to attend Corinthian Colleges (which shut down in 2015) are eligible to file claims. DeVos stated that approved BDR claims will be paid and pending ones will be processed while the regulation is under review. However, it’s unclear if students can still apply for loan forgiveness.
The Gainful Employment (GE) regulation is designed to help students avoid low-performing schools. It requires institutions to provide students with information on graduation rates, average earnings of graduates, and average federal student loan debt. The most important aspect of the regulation is the federal student aid qualification component, which stipulates that loan payments for graduates of postsecondary programs should not exceed 8% of annual earnings or 20% of discretionary income. Programs that do not meet these standards risk losing the ability to participate in federal student aid programs. According to Federal Student Aid data, in 2015 only 58% of programs at Californian for-profit institutions met the 8% benchmark, compared to 97% of programs at public and private not-for-profit institutions. The share of for-profits passing the discretionary income test is even lower, at 34% (public and not-for-profit schools have a passing rate of 82%). It is unclear if the GE regulations will be enforced while the committee reviews the regulation over the next two years.

While the federal government is taking steps to pull back on the regulation of for-profit institutions, California is moving in the opposite direction. In order for students at higher education institutions to qualify for Cal Grants, the institutions must meet minimum standards for graduation and loan default rates. In 2014, 137 institutions—almost all of them private for-profits—failed to meet California’s standards. In 2017, however, only 10 failed, which suggests that the policy might be working. Furthermore, California has joined 17 other states in suing DeVos over her decision.

As the Department of Education reviews these regulations, it should evaluate the effect the changes could have on student debt and loan default rates. In the meantime, keeping the current regulations in place would protect students from low-performing schools and help them avoid programs that may lead to high levels of debt and low-paying jobs.

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Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center