U.S. — The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted on July 1, 2026, implemented policy reforms that include accountability metrics for higher education programs based on student earnings. Under these new measures, programs must demonstrate that their students earn more than an adult with only a high school diploma to maintain eligibility for federal student loans.

Peter Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Policy and Law at Stetson University, said, "It's hard to pick, but I think the accountability measures will probably have some of the biggest impacts." He added, "This has been a long time coming to get to a place where we've got this kind of action [on accountability], and I think it will set the tone for how to measure outcomes and the success of higher ed institutions probably for at least a generation." Lake said, "You see the focus really shifting to earnings and whether there's value added [for students] going to a program, or whether it's value neutral or negative."

"You see it in the funding mechanisms as well—the concern that students might be racking up astronomical debt that they would never have a chance to pay off," Lake said. He noted, "That has been a persistent issue, because we know that loan default remains a major policy problem." Regarding potential shifts in borrowing, he said, "One of the concerns that I have is that some students will be driven to private loan markets, which are not well formed at this time," adding, "And there could be significant interest challenges and repayment issues." Lake also said, "And then you can't ignore, too, that the One Big Beautiful Bill cuts a lot of safety net programs, causing state shortfalls."

"Many higher ed students—at all ages—suffer from anxieties with respect to food and housing," Lake said. He recounted, "I had to actually feed one of my law school classes at night because they weren't eating," explaining, "It was a combination of a fairly brutal schedule and the fact that a lot of them were making really difficult choices between fuel, food and housing." He said, "So it isn't a direct issue for higher education, but indirectly I do worry that by cutting some of the safety programs and then perhaps forcing some people to a private loan market, that you might go backwards in some ways." Lake also noted discussions within the Beltway: "The chatter inside the Beltway is 'How do you gather the data to measure this? Was the department within its authority to consider what it did consider in terms of evidence during the negotiated rule-making process?'"

Lake anticipates that while many schools will manage, certain sectors may experience harder impacts. "The one set of people I know are waiting to see what happens before they shoot, and they're talking about it actively, is the theological sector," he said. He questioned what would happen if all programs met the new standards, asking, "Another thing I've wondered—what if everybody does pass the test?" Lake observed, "Fundamentally, this is questioning the pre-eminence of the classic liberal arts four-year degree at elite private colleges."

Lake added that pressure on the conversation comes from the bill's provisions related to loan limits and repayment systems. "The pressure on the conversation comes from the other side of the Big Beautiful Bill, which is the loan limits and loan-repayment systems that will be out there," he said. "It's not moving generally toward what I would call debtor-friendly directions." He stated, "Meanwhile, it puts tremendous pressure on the federal budget if we create more people who can't repay their loans." Lake warned, "And because we're extending the length of payment for so long, you could have the illusion of outcome value, but people are stuck in something that's equivalent to debtors' prison their whole life," noting, "That puts pressure on the housing market, on hospitality, the tax base."