Accountability Measures Proposed in Opportunity America Report Should Apply to All Schools to Protect All Students

12/3/2021

Arlington, VA – We agree with the purported goals described in the Opportunity America report that “all institutions of higher education should be held accountable for student outcomes,” and that an institution’s “tax status alone is a poor proxy for student outcomes.” The report also appropriately highlights how for-profit colleges have pioneered efforts in “innovation, capacity building, and serving the needs of nontraditional students.” Unfortunately, the report calls for penalizing for-profit colleges more harshly than other institutions based upon debt-to-earnings ratios and completion rates. The authors claim that “[a]ll students are entitled to the same protection afforded to students in proprietary schools,” yet their proposal contradicts this statement and would leave 24 million students at nonprofit and public institutions without the consumer protections they seek to impose on for-profit colleges.