Education Department’s Proposed Higher Ed Rule Includes Key Transparency Provisions for Students
Published Feb 11, 2026
Program-level information is essential for students navigating their postsecondary education options, where costs and outcomes can vary substantially across programs and institutions. Last month, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and negotiators reached consensus on a new higher education accountability framework that includes key transparency provisions. Collectively, the Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS), a new program information website, and required warnings about low-performing programs will give students and families more information than ever before about program costs and outcomes. These proposed regulations represent a meaningful step toward ensuring higher education provides strong outcomes for all students and that students have the information they need to select a postsecondary pathway that best fits their goals.
How STATS compares to the Financial Value Transparency framework
The proposed rule aligns the existing Gainful Employment (GE) and Financial Value Transparency (FVT) regulations with requirements in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The FVT framework was renamed to STATS and was mostly retained, though some reporting elements were removed. Institutions would continue reporting median annual institutional debt, but would no longer be required to report cumulative institutional debt for students who complete or withdraw. The proposal also eliminates debt-to-earnings metrics, which were previously included in GE and FVT. The earnings premium metric from GE and FVT is modified in the proposed rules to align with OBBBA but still assesses whether students are better or worse off after graduating from a given program.
All higher education programs would be subject to the accountability and transparency provisions, including undergraduate certificate programs.
How the transparency provisions would work
To implement STATS, ED would require institutions to report data on their programs and students enrolled in those programs, similar to what colleges have already been doing for GE and FVT. ED would then combine the data reported by institutions with data from its administrative systems and other federal agencies to calculate a set of metrics, including median post-college earnings, the earnings premium, and median loan debt. ED would make those metrics and others available on a new program information website. Institutions would be required to link to ED’s program information webpage on any webpage containing cost, financial aid, and admissions information about the program and institution.
Additionally, institutions would be required to notify current and prospective students about programs that may become ineligible for the Direct Loan program after they have failed the earnings premium measure. Those warnings must indicate that the program has not passed the earnings premium metric and may lose access to Direct Loans, and provide a link to access the Department’s program information website. Students must acknowledge seeing the warning before they can receive federal grants or loans.
Students need info about program-level outcomes and costs
Students need clear information about program costs, not just earnings, to understand their return on investment in postsecondary education. STATS and the program information website would provide unique program-level insights that are unavailable through existing ED data sources, such the College Scorecard and IPEDS. For the first time, students would have access to comparable program-level data across all sectors of higher education, including program costs. Institutions do not currently report data on tuition and fees, books, supplies, and equipment for all of their programs to IPEDS.
The proposed regulations include a new requirement for institutions to report grants and scholarships received for the duration of each student’s enrollment in the program in addition to annual amounts received. Program-level cost and grant aid data would allow ED to calculate more detailed and precise net prices by program, giving students a clearer picture of their out-of-pocket costs for pursuing a particular educational pathway. Notably, the proposed regulations would also require ED to calculate a new program-level measure on time to completion, which fills a major gap in publicly available data about how long students take to finish their credentials.
Next steps
To date, the Department has published draft consensus language from last month’s negotiations. In the coming months, the Department will publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for public comment, review feedback, and finalize the rule. As this process moves forward, we recommend the Department:
1) Retain the transparency provisions, including STATS, the program information website, and student warnings, in its final regulations.
2) Continue collecting program-level data from institutions.
3) Publish program-level metrics based on the FVT data that institutions have already reported. These data could be published as a separate data file and/or integrated into the College Scorecard.
Program-level information empowers students and families to make more informed decisions about where to enroll and what to study, and support institutional improvements, and informs evidence-based policymaking. That’s why the current FVT regulations have been broadly supported by field leaders, including our Postsecondary Data Collaborative.
The latest transparency provisions can serve as the foundation for a student-centered accountability system that connects cost, value, and outcomes at the program level, and helps students make data-informed decisions about where to enroll.
