Student loan rule would penalize graduates who enter ministry, Christian college leaders say

Christian college presidents are sounding the alarm about new federal regulations they say would cripple Christian higher education and effectively penalize students pursuing religious vocations.

The Department of Education’s proposal, known as the Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS), introduces an earnings premium test to determine federal loan eligibility for college programs. The rule — an implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act enacted last year — is designed to protect students from low-earning degrees.

Under the new metric, an undergraduate program “fails” if its graduates do not earn more than the median income of a high school graduate aged 25 to 34. For graduate programs, the benchmark is the median earnings of similarly aged adults holding only a bachelor’s degree.

The Education Department plans to use IRS and U.S. Census data to evaluate these earnings four years after a student completes their degree.

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“Programs that routinely fail to provide students with a reliable return on investment would lose access to federal student loans, and in certain cases, Pell Grants,” the Education Department said in an April 17 press release. Schools would have to disclose the program is a failing program and stop new student enrollments.

However, Christian college leaders warned the regulations would disproportionately affect religious programs and exacerbate a national shortage of clergy, according to a new report by Christianity Today.

“It’s an existential threat to the future of religious higher education in the US—I don’t think that’s an overstatement,” Philip Dearborn, head of the Association for Biblical Higher Education, told CT. “It came out of left field.”

According to Dearborn, 21 presidents from Christian colleges met with lawmakers in Washington last month to lobby against the rule.

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“Financial outcomes matter, but they don’t totally measure whether an education is worthwhile,” David Hoag, president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), told Christianity Today.

The report cited the government’s own estimates that religious programs would be one of the hardest-hit programs, predicting that 89% of religion master’s degrees and 53% of religion bachelor’s degrees would fail under the new metric.

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Critics also said in the report this regulation creates an “unfair” experience gap by comparing a recent college graduate to a 34-year-old high school graduate who may have 16 years in the workforce.

The Education Department says if more than half of a college’s total Title IV and HEA federal aid is tied to “failing” programs, the entire institution could be placed on provisional status.

Christianity Today noted that other programs, such as culinary arts and music training, face similar risks under the new regulations.

“If folks want to get their degrees in these areas, but they’re not eligible for financial aid, it’s going to significantly impact the religious workforce,” Frank Yamada, head of the Association of Theological Schools, said in a statement quoted in the report. “In many Christian traditions now, there are often more job openings or calls available than there are candidates to fill those calls.”

A spokesperson for the Education Department told Fox News Digital it could not comment on specific aspects of the proposed accountability rule during the public comment period but will be considering these comments as it develops the final rule.

“The Trump Administration’s proposed accountability framework is grounded in common sense: if postsecondary education programs do not leave graduates better off, taxpayers should not subsidize them,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a previous press release. “This consensus-backed framework will drive meaningful change in postsecondary education, ending years of regulatory whiplash and addressing student debt that has left too many students worse off.”