FAFSA season has arrived, and with it, the class of 2027 is gearing up for college applications. Financial bureaucracy, mundane and nerve-racking as always, is a quintessential part of senior year. Only now, it may come with an additional snag.
Recently, Linda McMahon’s Department of Education established a new rule: only students enrolled in programs meeting certain guaranteed graduate earnings standards can receive federal student loans. Numerous fields, including social work, cosmetology, graphic design, English literature, and more, risk receiving a “low-earning” designation. Their students, whether applying or currently enrolled, may be left financially in the cold as these designations come into effect in the 2028-29 school year.
Starting this year, the Department of Education will begin collecting data on the median earnings of degree holders four years after completion of their program. For 2027, that means using the earnings of graduates in 2023 to establish low-earning standards. If any undergraduate program cannot prove that their graduates earn more than others 25 to 34 years old without a degree, that program’s current students will be ineligible for the Direct Loan program. And for graduate school, programs must see their graduates earning more on average than workers with only an undergraduate degree or risk the same loss of student financial aid.
Thinly veiled, these cuts are intentionally gendered. Eighty-one percent of social workers are women. Of dental assistants? Ninety-four percent. And in early childhood education, ninety-seven percent are women—thirty eight percent being women of color. These statistics tell a story all their own.
Such professions have been marketed towards women ever since more began entering the workforce. An ingrained sense of women as “natural caregivers” has and continues to perpetuate this trend. As a result, women are still assumed to be headed towards more domestic and low-paying lines of work. All the while, men receive the encouragement to aspire toward higher positions, forming part of the reason for today’s gender pay gap. And for women of color at the intersection of race and gender stereotypes, these results are further compounded. Yet here and now, women geared towards gaining access to degrees in these fields face being devalued, discouraged, and demoralized from higher education by lack of financial support.
Despite perceptions to the contrary, these professions remain invaluable. Developing our children, assisting our communities in hardship, and enriching our lives with art, culture, and beauty, they serve necessary functions in our society. Our current government disagrees.
The actions of the Trump Administration and its Department of Education raise questions that Americans everywhere should be asking. Among them, what right has the state to decide what majors are worth it or not? “Freedom” being the buzzword fixation for many in government today, is it not a dilution of freedom to unequally support students, limiting who can pursue their dream major? FAFSA began partly to equalize opportunity; this ruling stratifies it.
In a land founded with the pursuit of happiness in mind, it seems unfathomable that the Department of Education would choose to dim the lights of so many. However, this administration pushes those boundaries daily. If nothing changes, our society, our students—our future—will feel the consequences.
