Some congressmen want to provide data on value of college degrees
WASHINGTON (WISH) — Was college worth the money?
Some in Congress think the government should provide students with information about the value of their degrees, the cost of tuition versus the potential earnings of graduates.
Privacy- and student-rights organizations as well as independent colleges worry the information could be misused, hacked or given to third parties.
American student loan debt sits at about $1.5 trillion. It creates a whole host of problems for recent graduates who own tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, said, the result is some students are “unable to leave their parents’ basement because they’re paying back these debts.”
Cassidy said part of the solution is educating students before they start class with detailed reports on the full cost of a degree and potential earnings after graduation.
“It matters where you go. It matters what you study when you go there.”
To provide that information to prospective students, Cassidy wants to overturn a long-standing law blocking the federal government from collecting student data.
Cassidy’s College Transparency Act would allow the federal government greater access to student information while barring the collection of certain data.
But, that proposal causes major concern for privacy-rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and people including Sarah Flanagan who represents private colleges and universities.
Flanagan, who is vice president for government relations and policy development for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said, “The federal government doesn’t get to know everything about its citizens that it might be curious about.”
Opponent said the act is too transparent. It allows the feds to pry into students’ lives and determine sensitive information such as whether a student is an undocumented immigrant.
“That’s a really good example of an area and a reason why we might want to take a different approach,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan and her organization support a competing bill she said provides the information Cassidy seeks while keeping data out of federal hands.