Introduction of the Higher Education Employment and Transparency Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Higher Education Employment and Transparency Act. This important legislation would help ensure that students are adequately informed of their choices as they navigate the process of applying to college.

While a college degree is as valuable as ever, the choices facing students as they attempt to choose the right school remain daunting.

While most students cite employment as a prime motivator for college attendance, they nevertheless are often inadequately informed about the employment outcomes at various institutions of higher education and for various fields.

Navigating the college application process is hard enough. While in some cases data on employment and earnings information does exist, in too many cases it is unclear or not easily accessible to prospective students. Making this information more transparent--and pointing prospective students in the right direction--would go a long way in ensuring that students are making the best choices tailored to their individual needs.
The Higher Education Employment and Transparency Act seeks to tackle these challenges. This bill represents one piece of the puzzle to ensure data on higher education outcomes is presented in a manner that is clear, transparent, standardized, and above all easily accessible to prospective students. Without requiring the collection of new data, the bill would give students better access to higher-quality information about the schools they are considering.

The legislation would make a number of key changes: First, it would expand on current requirements for Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) to disseminate certain information to prospective and enrolled students, through appropriate publications, mailings, and electronic media. The Higher Education Employment and Transparency Act would update this requirement to include disaggregated earnings and employment information, and require the use of data from more reliable sources.

Second, it would expand and improve the College Navigator, which is already a useful tool presenting a variety ofinformation about IHEs.

The Higher Education Employment and Transparency Act would require additional information to be included on this site, in addition to what is currently required: a link to a page with that same, higher-quality information that IHEs are newly required to disclose; a link to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook website, which includes regional data on starting salaries in all major occupations; and, a link to a website that provides information about former students' employment and earnings information, based on high- quality federal or state data.

Last, under this legislation, IREs would also be required to provide prominent links on their own websites to each of these new pieces of information.

While disagreements exist regarding potential longer-term changes to our higher education data regime, this bill is a key step that would improve students' access to data that already exists. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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