Appendix D	GE Programs Data

**Gainful Employment**

**Background Data Analysis**

U. S. Department of Education

February 2018

# 1. Introduction

The U. S. Department of Education is conducting negotiated rulemaking on the topic of gainful employment.  Gainful Employment (GE) programs are certificate programs at public, private, and proprietary institutions as well as degree programs at proprietary institutions.  GE negotiators requested debt to earnings data at the program level. 

Currently, the Department computes debt to earnings rates only for GE programs.  Further, the Department only has income data at the program-level for cohorts in GE programs.  Therefore, comparing debt to earnings at the program level for all institutions is not possible with existing Department data.  

# 2. Methods

The Department computes debt to earnings rates and measures.  Data analyses in this report used data from Federal Student Aid’s (FSA) National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS).  Data analyses described in this document are based on the following assumptions and definitions:

· *Institutions* refer to any entity with a unique six-digit Office of Postsecondary Education Identification (OPEID) code.  The OPEID is a number issued by the Department identifying each institution participating in Title IV Federal student financial aid. 

· The *control* categorization of institutions describes the governance structure of an institution.  Institutions are categorized as public, private (private non-profit), or proprietary (private for-profit). Some propriety institutions are publicly traded entities. This analysis does not differentiate between foreign and domestic institutions in its control categorization. 

· *CIP codes* identify instructional program specialties. The Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) defines the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). Instructional programs are classified by a six-digit CIP at the most granular level and at a two-digit at the least granular level. Analyses in this document categorize programs by both two-digit and six-digit codes.

· The *credential level* categorizations used in GE are shown in Table 1.

**Table 1.  Program Credential Levels**

· A *program* is defined as any unique combination of six-digit OPEID, six-digit CIP code, and credential level. For purposes of this document, a program was included in an award year if at least one student receiving federal financial aid was enrolled . 

· *GE programs* refer to certificate granting programs at public, private, and proprietary institutions and degree granting programs at proprietary institutions. 

· *Non-GE programs* refer degree granting programs at public and private institutions.

· Two *Debt to Earnings Rates* were established to determine if an educational program leads to gainful employment: 

The median annual loan payments are calculated with the Department’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) records. The annual earnings are calculated by matching FSA student records with Social Security Administration (SSA) data. Current regulations establish a transition period for the first several years of GE implementation, but the analyses in this document reflect actual rates rather than transitional rates.

· *GE 2015 Debt Measure Year* (2015 DMYR) programs refer to a subset of all GE programs. Specifically, these programs had at least 30 students who received federal aid and received official debt to earnings rates.  Some smaller programs use a 4-year cohort rather than a 2-year cohort.  The data used in this report are for students that completed in 2015.  

· *GE Debt to Earnings Measure*assigned programs to one of the status categories shown in Table 2.

**Table 2. Debt to Earnings Measure Categories**

A program loses eligibility for Title IV, HEA program funds if it fails two out of three consecutive years, or has a combination of debt to earnings rates that are zone or failing for four consecutive years. The analyses in this document reflect only *Debt to Earnings*rates calculated in the first year of GE implementation. They do not incorporate multi-year sanctions.

· *Enrollment* is the number of students in a GE program receiving Title IV, HEA program funds. In this analysis, enrollment is a 12-month unduplicated count of students rounded to the nearest 10.

· *Pell*students included in this analysis received a Pell grant any time prior to the 2015 award year.  Pell is often used as a proxy for low-income students because it is a program targeted for students who come from low-income families.

· Student *demographics* were from the student’s earliest Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Students who had missing information were designated as not having the described characteristic. Categories used in this report include the following:

· *Gender* is captured on the FAFSA as female or non-female.  The non-female category includes male and unknown genders.

· *Zero Expected Family Contribution (EFC)*can be used as an indicator of low socioeconomic status because EFC is calculated based on household income.

· *Independent status* is determined by a number of factors, including age, marital status, veteran status, and whether a student is claimed as a dependent by anyone for purposes of a tax filing.[footnoteRef:1] Independent status is often used as an indicator that the student is non-traditional because most traditional students begin their studies as dependents. [1:  Details on determining dependence/independence are available at https:// studentaid.ed.gov/fafsa/filling-out/dependency# dependent-or-independent.] 

· *Married.*Students who were married at the beginning of their academic careers. Married status may indicate the student is non-traditional because most traditional students are unmarried at the start of their academic careers. 

· *Mother with College Education.*Students whose mothers completed college. Children of mothers who completed college are more likely to attend and complete college.[footnoteRef:2] [2:  Goldrick-Rab, S., and Sorensen, K. (2010, Fall). Unmarried Parents in College, Future of Children, Journal Issue: Fragile Families] 

In accordance with FSA guidance on privacy protection, some data values displayed on this document are suppressed.

# 3. Results

## 3.1 Programs and Enrollment Counts

The number of GE programs and enrollment in them has changed over time (see Table 3).  In the time between 2008-2009 and 2015-2016, program count peaked in 2013-2014 and enrollment peaked in 2010-2011. 

**Table 3. Number of GE Programs and Enrollees by Award Year**

Enrollment values rounded to the nearest 10

The 2015-2016 award year GE program enrollment counts by CIP code and control are shown in Appendices A and B.  Health profession programs alone represented 26 percent of GE programs and almost 40 percent of GE enrollment. 

GE program enrollment distribution by demographics, control, and level is in Table 4. Roughly 9 out of 10 students were Pell students and approximately 3 out of 5 had zero estimated family contribution. A majority of students were female and independent. Approximately one-fifth of students were married.

**Table 4. Demographics of Students Enrolled in GE Programs by Control and Credential Level in 2015-16**

Percentages rounded to the nearest 10 percent

There were close to 33,000 GE programs in 2015-2016 (see Appendix A), but only 8,650 of them had debt to earnings rates (2015 DMYR). 2015 DMYR program counts by CIP and credential are in Appendix C.  The most common programs were in Health Professions and Related (CIP = 51).  Personal and Culinary Services (CIP = 12) was the second most frequent type of program.  Together these two types of programs accounted for almost 3 out of 5 2015 DMYR programs.  

In 2015 DMYR, the types of programs with the highest enrollment (see Appendix D) were Health Professions and Related programs (CIP = 51); Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services programs (CIP = 52); and Personal and Culinary Services programs (CIP = 12).  Almost 90 percent of all enrollees attended programs offered by proprietary institutions and less than 2 percent of enrollees attended programs that received a Debt to Earnings rating at public or private nonprofit institutions. The concentration of enrollment in GE programs at proprietary institutions is affected by the definition, which excludes degree programs at public and private nonprofit institutions.

The differences in program and enrollment counts between all 2015 GE Programs and 2015 DMYR programs is in Table 5. The Data is shown by two-digit CIP code. Overall, the proportion of 2015 DMYR out of all GE is roughly 1 in 5 for programs and 7 out of 10 for enrollees. These varied by program type. For example, health profession programs enrolled a relatively high proportion of all GE students in debt to earnings health profession programs (CIP = 51, 70%). In comparison, agriculture programs enrolled a lower proportion (CIP = 01, 20%).

**Table 5: Percent of all GE in 2015 DMYR**

Percentages rounded to the nearest 10 percent

-Indicates not applicable, no programs in category

* Suppressed for privacy

		GE Programs Data

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## 3.2 Debts to Earnings Rates

Table 6 gives the 2015 DMYR program results by control and level. Notably, 6,422 GE programs (74 percent) with 1,160,080 enrollees (67 percent) would pass the debt to earnings rates measure.  Further, 1,325 programs (15 percent) with 345,169 enrollees (20 percent) would be in the zone category.  Finally, 903 programs (10 percent) with 214,293 enrollees (13 percent) fall into the fail category. 

**Table 6. 2015 DMYR Program and Enrollment Counts by D/E Results (Based on Non-Transitional Rates)**

Enrollment values rounded to the nearest 10 

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Table 7 provides mean program annual earnings and mean annual loan payments for passing, zone, and failing 2015 DMYR programs. Passing programs had higher annual earnings and lower annual loan payments in comparison to zone and failing programs.****

**Table 7. Mean Annual Earnings and Loan Payments by Debt to Earnings Results**

Average values represent a program (unweighted) average.

Annual Loan Payments based on non-transitional debt calculations.

Figures 1 and 2 provide the distribution of program earnings and annual loan payments for 2015 DMYR programs. In box and whisker plots, the line inside the box is the median, and the box contains the middle 50% of the data.  In Figure 1, percentiles were higher for passing programs than for zone and failing programs.

**Figure 1. Distribution of Earnings by 2015 DMYR Debt to Earnings results**

****

In figure 2, percentiles were lower for passing programs than for zone programs, which in turn had lower percentile values than failing programs.

**Figure 2. Distribution of Annual Loan Payment by 2015 DMYR Debt to Earnings results**

****

Annual Loan Payments based on non-transitional debt calculations

Passing programs are those that passed either the annual earnings rate metric or the discretionary income rate metric. Table 8 shows that 64 percent of programs that passed overall passed both the discretionary income rate and the annual earnings rate. Thirty-two percent (5% + 28%) of programs that passed overall passed the annual earnings rate but failed or were in the zone for the discretionary income rate. Approximately 4 percent passed the discretionary income rate and failed or were in the zone for the annual earnings rate.

**Table 8.  Passing Programs by *debt to earnings* Rates**

Percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding

D/E results determinations based on non-transitional rates

Table 9 shows that 78 percent of zone programs failed the discretionary income rate but were zone for annual earnings rate. 

**Table 9.  Zone Programs Disaggregated by *debt to earnings* Rates**

Percentages may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding

D/E results determinations based on non-transitional rates

# 3. Discussion

The analyses presented in this document provide a profile of the landscape of GE programs with a focus on 2015 DMYR programs.  2015 DMYR GE programs represent a relatively small percentage of all 2015-16 GE programs (approximately 20 percent), but the 2015-16 enrollees in those programs represent a relatively high percentage of all enrollees (approximately 70 percent).  The most frequent types of 2015 DMYR programs were health related undergraduate certificate programs followed by personal and culinary services undergraduate certificate programs. These programs represented almost half of the 2015 DMYR programs. Health-related undergraduate certificate programs followed by business management bachelor degree programs had the highest enrollment count among 2015 DMYR programs.

Overall, a little over 10 percent of programs failed the debt to earnings rates measure released for the 2015 DMYR with approximately 25 percent in zone or failing status. For the proprietary sector, about 15 percent of programs failed, with 37 percent in a zone or failing status. The majority of passing programs pass both measures, but more programs (1,784) failing the discretionary measure are protected by passing the annual earnings measure than the reverse (4 programs).

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	Appendix A	GE Programs Data

Values rounded to the nearest 10	

-Indicates not applicable, no programs in category

* Suppressed for privacy

	Appendix B	GE Programs Data

	Appendix C	GE Programs Data

Values rounded to the nearest 10

-Indicates not applicable, no programs in category

* Suppressed for privacy

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