“The official federal student-loan default rate fell a percentage point this year, with the largest dip occurring in the for-profit sector, data released on Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Education show. But the talk among advocates, reporters, and policy wonks on Wednesday was less about the drop than about the Education Department’s last-minute tweak of its own numbers,” The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
“That ‘adjustment,’ which spared some colleges whose high rates would have cost them their ability to award federal aid, has reanimated the debate over default rates, long derided as a poor measure of institutional quality.
In news releases and on social media, many said the eleventh-hour reprieve undermined what little credibility the rates had, weakening them as an accountability measure. …
An Education Department official declined to tell reporters on Wednesday how many colleges had been spared as a result of the adjustments, but said that it was fewer than the number that were sanctioned and that it included institutions in all sectors. …
At issue, ultimately, is the question of what—and whom—the default rates are for. In theory, they are supposed to measure whether colleges receiving federal dollars are a good investment of student and taxpayer money. But critics say the numbers are easily manipulated by institutions and are unfair to colleges where relatively few students borrow.”