BloombergBusinessweek: Should Colleges Be On the Hook When Students Can't Repay Their Loans?

December 27, 2013

By Karen Weise

One out of every seven borrowers with student loan debt falls behind on payments within three years. The question is: Who should pay for those missed payments? Under a new proposal from three Senate Democrats, the schools should be on the hook.

Before Christmas, senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) released a slate of proposed reforms aimed at lowering student debt. In addition to a student borrower’s bill of rights that would put more emphasis on getting services to offer students affordable repayment plans, the senators want schools with lots of struggling borrowers to compensate the government for loan repayment losses.

The penalty proposed in the Protect Student Borrowers Act of 2013 would affect schools at which at least a quarter of students take out loans, a threshold that would include most institutions. Inside Higher Ed reports that community colleges would be exempt, along with historically black institutions.

Story: Unpacking the Proposed Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights

The proposal would force schools to pay a penalty, along a sliding scale, based on how frequently students default on their loans. The Chronicle of Higher Education writes: “Colleges and universities with student-loan default rates of more than 30 percent would pay a fine to the Department of Education equal to 20 percent of the total value of loans issued to their students in default. … the least-severe infraction—default rates from 15 percent to 20 percent—would require a 5 percent penalty.”

Those thresholds are likely to most affect for-profit colleges, which have the country’s highest default rates (PDF). For-profit colleges already face a proposal from the U.S. Department of Education that would force schools to pay back some of the debt if their students don’t earn enough to cover the loans.

But for-profit colleges aren’t the only ones facing scrutiny over student borrowing. Debt will likely be a factor in the new federal ratings for colleges, which eventually could tie into how much federal student aid a college receives. Whether the Senate bill goes anywhere—a challenge, to say the least—it’s safe to bet that pressure will mount on colleges to address student loan debt as their problem, and not merely as an issue for their students.

Story: Borrowers Are Finally Using the Government's Helpful Student Loan Program

Weise is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek in New York. Follow her on Twitter @kyweise.

Inside Higher Education: 'Skin in the Game' on Loans

December 20, 2013
By Michael Stratford

WASHINGTON -- A group of Senate Democrats announced Thursday a new push to provide student loan borrowers with more protections and hold colleges more accountable for loan defaults.

In a call with reporters, Senators Richard Durbin of Illlinois, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts highlighted a package of new and existing proposals aimed at reducing the burden of student debt. Durbin acknowledged that the senators had had “limited success” in getting Republican support for the measures, but said they will be a centerpiece of the Democratic agenda in the Senate in 2014.

One of the more controversial new proposals, to be introduced by Reed, would require colleges with high student loan default rates to pay a penalty to the government that is proportional to the defaulted debt.

Reed said the legislation is aimed at holding colleges more accountable for student loan defaults by having them share the risk of those defaults.

“They will have to have skin in the game,” he said. “They will have to make financial judgments based on how well-informed and how reliable their graduates are in terms of paying back their student loans.”

The concept of “institutional risk-sharing for student loan defaults” has previously been embraced, in a range of forms, by some student aid reformers, most recently in a February report by the Institute for College Access and Success.

Reed said that a sliding scale of penalties for colleges as their default rate increases or decreases would provide more direct and effective incentives to colleges than the existing all-or-nothing cohort default rate rules.

Currently, institutions are kicked out of the federal loan program if their three-year default rates are 25 percent or higher for three years or exceed 40 percent in any single year. The most recent national average of cohort default rates across all sectors of higher education was 14.7 -- the highest since 1995.

Under the new proposal, a college whose student loan default rate reaches 15 percent or higher in a single year would have to begin to pay a penalty of 5 percent of the value of the outstanding defaulted debt. As an institution’s default rate increased, it would have to pay increasingly larger penalties, with a maximum repayment of 20 percent of defaulted debt for colleges whose default rates exceed 30 percent..

The money collected from institutions would be directed toward borrower relief and the Pell Grant Program.

The standards would apply only to colleges where more than a quarter of students borrow federal loans. And the bill also provides special exemptions for community colleges and historically black colleges, which recognizes those institutions’ “historic mission” of serving low-income students, Reed said.

Warren praised the risk-sharing proposal as good way to better-align “the incentives in the whole system.”

“This is not an indictment of every school out there,” she said. “Many schools are headed in this direction but there are many that are not.”

Reed’s proposal is the latest effort on Capitol Hill that has been targeted at holding colleges financially responsible for the outcomes of their students. Earlier this fall, two other Democrats introduced legislation that would base federal student aid on how colleges perform on certain metrics relating to access, affordability and value.

Similarly, a key component of the Obama administration higher education agenda in the coming years will involve lobbying members of Congress to allocate federal student aid based on how institutions perform in the college ratings system it is currently developing.

Other Changes to Student Loans

Among the other legislation that the Senate Democrats are pushing is a “student borrower bill of rights” that would increase disclosures to borrowers about their repayment options and their loan servicer. The legislation, introduced by Durbin last week, would also impose new requirements on how private lenders service loans and allocate payments.

In addition, the lawmakers plan to support a longstanding effort to make it easier for borrowers to discharge private student loan debt in bankruptcy and a new federal grant program aimed at creating incentives for states to chip in more money for higher education.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/20/senate-democrats-launch-new-push-student-loan-debt-college-accountability#ixzz2o1lPEgbxInside Higher Ed

The Hill: Dems split on 'gainful employment' rules

December 17, 2013

By Julian Hattem

Democrats in the House can’t reach agreement about upcoming regulations designed to cut off federal funds to poorly performing college programs.

Lawmakers are lining up on opposite sides of the effort, with some encouraging the Department of Education to finalize the contentious regulations and others hoping for a rewrite of the draft rules.

Separate letters in recent days have highlighted the split, with contrasting messages for the Obama administration as it tries to write rules holding for-profit schools and career training programs accountable for the education they offer. The regulations would outline what type of “gainful employment” graduates of those programs will need to have for their schools to continue receiving federal money.

“I think it’s refreshing,” Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) told The Hill on Tuesday about the lack of a single party position. “I think if people are actually looking at this on the merits and not taking a knee-jerk party position, I think that’s a good thing.”

On Friday, he and 29 other Democrats wrote a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan worrying that the administration’s effort could “negatively impact millions of students nationwide.”

Meanwhile, 31 other House Democrats wrote a separate note arguing that the rule “will help protect student and taxpayer investments in career education programs and enforce current law.”

Supporters say that the rule is necessary to prevent some schools from ripping students off and leaving them saddled with debt but unable to get a good job. But Democrats pushing for revisions worry that the rule, while well intended, would use imperfect metrics and could rely too heavily on the administration's upcoming college rating system.

Many Republicans, meanwhile, have told the administration to entirely abandon its effort, arguing that the rules could end up hurting students.

The Education Department is expected to release a draft regulation early in the new year.

It would be the administration’s second try at a “gainful employment” rule.  A federal judge struck down the administration’s previous attempt last year.

That “wasted a lot of time and money and effort,” Andrews said.

He said that Congress would ultimately be responsible for defining "gainful employment" when it reauthorizes the Higher Education Act, the nearly 50-year-old law that governs federal student aid, which is up for renewal in 2014.

“I’d rather us try to compromise and write a statutory definition that serves the purpose of the system,” he said.

Tags: Robert Andrews, Gainful employment, United States Department of Education

APSCU Press Release: The U.S. Department of Education’s “F” in Negotiated Rulemaking

Bad Public Policy Will Displace Millions of Students Over the Next Decade; Inhibit Employer Needs for Job Ready Workforce
Washington, D.C., December 13, 2013

Today, the U.S. Department of Education failed to achieve consensus on its misguided regulatory effort aimed at measuring quality through a graduate's near-term earnings.

The lack of consensus is not surprising considering the Department's failures during the regulatory process:

1. Failed to evaluate the impact on students
While claiming to be focused on student outcomes, the Department has made it impossible to discuss the proposed regulation’s impact on students. Based on analysis of earlier versions of the regulation, hundreds of thousands of students in thousands of programs will lose access in the early years of the regulation, and by the end of the decade millions of students will be denied access to career programs of their choice.

2. Failed to analyze the actual impact of the regulation
The Department’s current regulation uses two metrics to evaluate programs. Both metrics require multiple years of data, yet the Department provided only a one year snapshot of data. By not fully analyzing the regulation, the Department has made it impossible to accurately analyze or discuss the regulation.

3. Failed to explain their arbitrary nature
With no explanation, the Department has gone from a single metric, to three metrics, to two metrics, thus proving that they are blindly groping for something to publish in the Federal Register without clear direction or purpose. This supports the view of many in the higher education community that this matter should be left to Congress. 

4. Failed to apply the regulation evenly and fairly across all of higher education
At a time when we should be discussing improving outcomes across all of higher education, the Department proposed a regulation that arbitrarily uses two metrics to determine program quality at a subset of institutions. If applied to all of postsecondary education, many institutions would be unable to meet the arbitrary debt-to-earnings ratio of 8 percent.

For example, programs offering a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Michigan, a law degree from George Washington University Law School, or a bachelor’s degree in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University would all fail the Department’s debt-to-earnings metric.

5. Failed to heed the advice of others
Multiple leaders in postsecondary education have said that using earnings to determine program value is misguided. Comments include:

Nicholas Dirks, chancellor, University of California, Berkeley said schools should not be rated based on the earnings of their graduates.

Catharine B. Hill, president, Vassar College noted that a ratings system based on earnings ignores the fact that earnings often increase over time.

Drew Faust, president, Harvard University said looking at the salary a college graduate earns in his or her first job as a proxy for the value of a college education is a huge mistake.

During the negotiated rulemaking sessions, a number of negotiators expressed the view that colleges and universities cannot control the economy, the availability of jobs, where students choose to live and work or individual choices about borrowing.

6. Failed to follow their own research
An October 2013 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) report found that 26 percent of bachelor’s degree recipients at public four-year institutions, who were repaying their loans, faced monthly loan payments greater than 12 percent of their monthly income. At private non-profit institutions, 39 percent exceeded the 12 percent debt-to-earnings threshold and 35 percent at private sector institutions exceeded the threshold. Yet the Department has proposed an 8 percent debt-to-earnings metrics threshold as the government standard for affordable debt.

7. Failed to have a representative negotiating committee of the very students and institutions impacted
 Of the 28 representatives the Department selected for the negotiating committee, only four represented private sector colleges and universities. Several of the committee members were on-the-record opponents of the existence of private sector institutions.

Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities released the following statement on the negotiated rulemaking session, “the cumulative actions of the Department will result in denying access to hundreds of thousands of students immediately and millions of students by the end of the decade. We hope that Secretary Duncan will see the error of the Department’s ways and stop this process before it becomes an economic nightmare for students and employers seeking skilled workers.”

The Wall Street Journal: Education Department Targets For-Profit Colleges

By Josh Mitchell

Dec. 12, 2013

WASHINGTON—As many as 20% of programs at for-profit colleges would lose revenue from student aid under a draft proposal the Obama administration is developing to rein in tuitions.

The plan, which the Education Department has spent months drafting, targets for-profit schools whose students end up deep in debt or default on their student loans at exceptionally high rates. The rules would also apply to community colleges that offer career training, and technical schools. Public and nonprofit four-year colleges and universities wouldn't be affected.

The department is set to meet with representatives of schools and student advocates Friday in hopes of winning broad support for the proposal, which could still be modified in the coming months.

For-profit schools have already voiced alarm about the emerging plan. The proposal would threaten revenues at major education companies such as DeVry Education Group Inc., DV +0.31% Corinthian Colleges Inc., COCO -0.62% Education Management Corp. EDMC +0.83% , which runs the Art Institutes; and Apollo Education Group Inc., APOL +0.97% which owns the University of Phoenix. At most for-profit schools, so-called Title IV funds—generally Pell grants and federal student loans—are the biggest source of revenue. The funds are awarded to students who use them to cover tuitions at the schools.

The administration is expected to formally propose a "gainful employment" plan early next year and have the rules in place by 2015. Under a version released this week, programs would lose Title IV funds if they failed one of several standards. The student-debt payments of their former graduates, on average, couldn't exceed 12% of their annual income or 30% of their discretionary income several years after they leave school. Also, the share of students defaulting on federal loans within three years of leaving a program couldn't reach 30%.

The administration estimates that under its latest draft proposal, roughly 13% of programs at for-profit schools and community colleges would fail. An analysis by BMO Capital Markets said that at for-profits alone, 1,400 programs, or roughly 20%, would fail.

An Education Department spokesman said the agency couldn't comment because it was still in talks with schools on the plan. Student advocates have long called for more-stringent rules at for-profit schools, whose students generally have higher levels of debt and default at higher rates than those at public or nonprofit schools. The administration has been working since 2009 to put in place "gainful employment" rules, but an initial version of the rule was struck down by a federal judge who deemed they were designed in an arbitrary way.

For-profit schools say they are being unfairly targeted, given that some of the highest student-debt burdens fall on those who attend public and nonprofit graduate schools, such as law and medical school. They say they serve many students—such as single mothers and many low-income students who don't live near a community college—who otherwise would have few, if any, options for attending postsecondary school. The administration has said the rules are being written under a law that applies only to for-profit schools and community colleges and institutions that offer career training programs.

Sally Stroup, executive vice president of government affairs at the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, the sector's main lobbying arm, called the proposal "sweeping" and indicated the industry would oppose the new plan. She said many schools would be forced to close programs if they lost federal funding, which she said in turn would deny many students educational opportunities.

"This is just bad policy, and it's just something that's not workable," Ms. Stroup said.

Ben Miller, a senior policy analyst at think tank New America Foundation and a former senior policy adviser for the Obama Education Department, said the latest plan is needed to ensure students aren't taking on huge debt with no returns in the form of higher wages.

"The problem you have is there is some subset of programs in the career space that are leaving students with too much debt compared to their economic return," Mr. Miller said. "This is an area where students are much more likely to borrow, they are much more likely to take on larger amounts of debt and they're much more likely to not repay that debt."

Write to Josh Mitchell at joshua.mitchell@wsj.com

Politico: Latest gainful employment proposal

December 12, 2013

The Education Department sent a new proposal for the gainful employment rule and long-promised estimates of how many programs would be affected Wednesday evening. The 10-second version: It no longer uses the repayment rate and evaluates programs based on debt-to-income ratios and cohort default rates. It cut a provision that immediately ended federal financial aid eligibility for a program with a cohort default rate of more than 40 percent. And it would affect even more programs than the department’s initial proposal.
 

The Chronicle of Higher Education: For-Profit Colleges’ Winter Meeting Focuses on Employment

December 9, 2013 

by Scott Carlson

In the winter months of years past, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities has held swanky meetings at resort destinations like Lake Tahoe or Beaver Creek, Colo., and its annual symposium in Washington was more inwardly focused. As policy makers and the public began to scrutinize the debt, default rates, and poor employment prospects of students coming out of some prominent colleges in the for-profit sector, however, the setting and the tone of the meetings didn’t play well in some news outlets.

The meetings have been “sort of half investor conference and half cheerleading,” with the cheers led by politicians aligned with the for-profit education industry, said Trace A. Urdan, a managing director at Wells Fargo Securities who follows the education sector. This year, he added, “it sounds like maybe they wanted to get into a little more substance.”

For this winter’s symposium, starting on Monday in Washington, the association holds its inaugural “State of the Workforce Symposium,” focused on employment trends, the “skills gap,” and how colleges (and not just for-profit ones) can prepare the work force. Speakers include economists from George Washington University and the RAND Corporation, a former president of the Service Employees International Union, advocates for veterans, chief executive officers from employers like Siemens, and representatives of nonprofit education associations. The theme is likely to return for years to come.

“This is really the next chapter in the evolution in what APSCU should be doing as a voice and vision for the sector that we serve and represent,” said Steve Gunderson, a former Republican congressman who became the association’s president and chief executive last year. “The absolute message is that postsecondary education should lead to employment in [students'] field of study, with a skill that is productive for both the employee and the employer. What all of us in higher education need to do is see us as part of the employment chain.”

Observers say it is a sensible shift in focus, and savvy on a number of levels. Stock prices among the big-name colleges have flagged in recent years, and the sector appears to be facing renewed pressure with revisions to the Education Department’s “gainful employment” rule, which may be imposed in more stringent form. (The concluding session at the symposium will be a briefing about the rule, closed to outsiders, Tuesday afternoon.) Vocational training is one area where the public looks at for-profit colleges more favorably, and it’s a business that nonprofits want to horn in on.

So if the industry is going to address concerns publicly, those observers say, a good place to do it is in Washington—with an audience. The symposium features a special three-for-one registration deal, but the association tells registrants that, “instead of members from your organization, we ask you to bring employer partners, work-force professionals in your industry, state or local policy makers.”

Mr. Gunderson said the association had never tried that tactic before. Partnerships with industry—tailoring programs to specific needs outlined by employers—needs to be the trend for the future. “We cannot and should not just say, ‘OK, you pursue whatever kind of course you want, and good luck in the job world,’” he said. “That day is sort of gone for everyone in higher ed.”

But in Washington, said Mr. Urdan, the symposium may also be a way to “collect stories and fans” that speak to the industry’s ability to train a certain segment of the work force in selected skills. To have local employers and local officials standing with the for-profit colleges just blocks from the U.S. Capitol—that could send a message to Washington policy makers. “Politics is all about the anecdote,” he said. Among politicians who are sympathetic with for-profit colleges, “what the politicians always complain about is that they are not sufficiently armed by the industry with positive examples.”

The industry is trying to tie itself to vocation, rather than compare itself to traditional institutions. “They are not trying to hide under Harvard’s skirts anymore,” Mr. Urdan said. “They are saying that we are all about employment, and we do a good job of it, and we are investing resources in doing a better job of it.”

Kevin Kinser, an associate professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany who studies the for-profit industry and blogs regularly for The Chronicle, said the focus on work-force education may be a way of “localizing” the debate about graduation rates and value of the industry.

“What has happened to the for-profits is that the question of value has been nationalized, so people look at these large data sets and see how poorly the for-profits in the aggregate, across states, are performing,” he said. But at the local level, there are a number of institutions that do a good job—”and in fact are almost models of success and access for low-income populations,” he said.

The symposium’s emphasis on ties between employer and college “might be a way to recapture that local connection that many for-profits had in the past, trying to re-establish the local benefits to the local economy that for-profits can provide,” he said.

Jobs, in fact, are intimately tied to the fate of the for-profit sector. Mr. Urdan pointed out that last week’s unemployment report, which showed the unemployment rate dropping to a five-year low, echoed a more positive message he has heard from for-profit colleges. While enrollment at some online colleges, like the University of Phoenix, is “still in freefall,” among more vocationally oriented colleges “the declines have leveled off.”

For example, Universal Technical Institute, a for-profit institution specializing in automotive and mechanic training, reported that its graduates were having more success in the job market. “They are seeing all the manufacturers that were running away from them during the recessions coming back,” Mr. Urdan said.

The problem is that this hasn’t quite shown up in enrollments yet, he said. The “show rate” is down—students are signing up but bailing out before classes start.

“They get cold feet around the money,” Mr. Urdan said. “Students remain apprehensive about whether going to school is a good investment and whether there is going to be a job at the other end of the program.” As an investment, he said, the for-profit industry won’t turn around until that trend turns.

APSCU Press Release: Private Sector Colleges and Universities are a key driver in student workplace readiness

IP-Intensive Industries Skill Sets Are Focus of New Report


Washington, DC, December 5, 2013–Private sector institutions were responsible for awarding 23 percent of all the degrees and certifications required to earn jobs in IP-intensive industries in 2012. Three-quarters of these jobs are in STEM fields: technologists, technicians, and production workers that support scientists, engineers, and managers who research, develop, and manufacture innovative products and services. This data is in a new report released today by the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU).

The report is authored by Nam D. Pham, Ph.D. Partner, ndp/analytics who will present its findings at the APSCU Inaugural Workforce Symposium on December 9-10 in Washington, DC, where stakeholders from business, government, academia and NGO’s will convene to address the skills gap in America’s future workforce.

The U.S. currently accounts for more than one-third of global research and development (R&D), most of which is contributed by private companies. In 2011, private R&D contributed to more than 1.4 million STEM related jobs. Empirical studies have shown that innovation — the process of turning an idea into a final product or service — is a key driver of economic expansion in both developed and developing countries, accounting for 80 percent of U.S. economic growth.

Other key findings in the report documents trends in enrollment at PSCU, such as:

    The number of institutions, student enrollment, and degrees conferred by private sector schools has grown exponentially over the past decades in response to higher demand for the skills needed to enter the 21st century labor market or career advancement. About 13 percent of postsecondary enrollment is in private sector schools, which in 2012 conferred 32.5 percent of all postsecondary credentials and associate’s degrees, 7.4 percent of all bachelor’s degrees, and 9.5 percent of master’s or other advanced degrees.

    Evidence shows a highly positive correlation between education, employment and earnings. In 2012, when the national unemployment rate reached a high of 8.1 percent, the unemployment rates for those without a high school diploma and those with one were 12.4 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively.

    For those with some college and an associate’s degree, the unemployment rates were 7.7 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively. The unemployment rates were lower for those people who had earned a bachelor’s degree (4.5 percent), a master’s degree (3.5 percent), and a doctor’s degree (2.5 percent).

The full report can be found on the APSCU website.

APSCU’s Workforce Symposium will take place at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, December 9-10, 2013.

Symposium speakers include:

    Eric Spiegel, President and CEO, Siemens Corporation
    The Honorable John Kline (R-MN), Chairman, House Education and Workforce Committee
    The Honorable Rob Andrews (D-NJ), House Education and Workforce Committee
    Andy Stern, President Emeritus, Service Employees International Union
    Matthew Sigelman, President and CEO, Burning Glass Technologies

For more information or to register to attend, visit: www.apscu.org/workforce

U.S. News 10 Universities With the Largest Undergraduate Populations& World Report:

December 3, 2013 RSS Feed Print
By Delece Smith-Barrow

Each of these schools had more than 37,000 undergraduate students.

The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College and The Short List: Grad School to find data that matters to you in your college or grad school search.

Going to college may be increasingly expensive, but the cost hasn't deterred thousands of students from enrolling. Between 1992 and 1998, undergraduate enrollment was stable, but it increased by 37 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Universities with a large undergraduate enrollment usually offer hundreds of clubs, intramural sports and other activities to keep students engaged. Arizona State University, for example, has 850 registered student clubs for the 59,382 undergraduates enrolled in fall 2012, according to the results of a spring 2013 survey by U.S. News. The school had the largest undergraduate enrollment for a traditional brick-and-mortar school, according to data submitted to U.S. News by 1,248 ranked schools.

[Use these strategies when applying to college with bad grades.]

Other schools with large undergraduate enrollment include University of Central Florida with 50,968 students, Ohio State University—Columbus with 43,058 students and Texas A&M University—College Station, which had 40,103 undergrads.

DeVry University, a for-profit school, had the largest undergraduate enrollment overall with 59,484 students.

Of the 10 schools with the most undergrads, the average number of enrolled students was 45,320. Among all 1,248 schools that submitted data to U.S. News, the average was 6,218.

[Avoid these big college application mistakes.]

Eight of the 10 schools are categorized as National Universities, which means they offer a range of undergraduate and graduate degrees and are committing to doing groundbreaking research.

College of St. Joseph in Vermont had the fewest undergraduates in fall 2012, with just 179 students.

Below is a list of the 10 universities with the highest undergraduate enrollment. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
School name (state)     Fall 2012 undergraduate student enrollment     U.S. News rank and category
DeVry University (IL)     59,484     RNP*, Regional Universities (Midwest)
Arizona State University     59,382     142, National Universities
University of Central Florida     50,968     170, National Universities
Liberty University (VA)     46,133     89, Regional Universities (South)
Ohio State University—Columbus     43,058     52, National Universities
Texas A&M University—College Station     40,103     69, National Universities
University of Texas—Austin     39,955     52, National Universities
Pennsylvania State University—University Park     39,192     37, National Universities
Florida International University     37,468     RNP, National Universities
Michigan State University     37,454     73, National Universities

*RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of its ranking category. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News College Compass to find undergraduate enrollment data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.

U.S. News surveyed nearly 1,800 colleges and universities for our 2013 survey of undergraduate programs. Schools self-reported a myriad of data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News's data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Colleges rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges or Best Graduate Schools. The undergraduate enrollment data above are correct as of Dec. 3, 2013.

Education Industry Reporter: Final Gainful Employment Rulemaking Session Scheduled for Friday, December 13

December 02, 2013
By Dennis Cariello

Posted in Department of Education, Education Data & Statistics, Gainful Employment, Higher Education News, Higher Education Policy 

Politico’s Libby Nelson, in today’s “Morning Education” email (and in a tweet on Black Friday) reports that the U.S. Department of Education “has scheduled its third session of negotiated rule-making on the ‘gainful employment’ rule for Dec. 13 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Education Department’s 1990 K St. offices, according to an email sent to negotiators Friday.”  This is also the last day of the next NACIQI meeting (the Department’s advisory committee on accreditation).  In case you are curious, 1990 K Street is no where near 415 New Jersey Ave. NW. (where the NACIQI sessions will be held).

As you may recall from our past reporting, one of the purposes of this session is to review data on the anticipated effect of the proposed rules.  It will be interesting to see how these various rules shake out and if there are a number of programs that would pass the debt metrics proposed in September, but would fail the new measures proposed by the Department before the last session.
UPDATE (8:23 PM): The Federal Register has the pre-publication notice for the new session.  Nothing else of note in the notice.