A federal regulation is quietly eliminating educational opportunities for veterans, low-income students, and working adults - while leaving other colleges completely untouched.
Aircraft Mechanics Trained at Proprietary Colleges
70%+
Medical Asst. Degrees from Proprietary Colleges
50%+
CDL / Truck Driver Training
0
Comparable Rules for Public Colleges
The Problems
Why the 90/10 Rule Must Be Repealed
01Veterans' Rights
Veterans Are Being Penalized for Their Service
Veterans earn GI Bill benefits through military service - they are deferred compensation for years of sacrifice, not a government handout. For decades, these benefits were correctly treated as the veteran's personal funds. In 2021, Congress reclassified them as "federal funds," making it harder for proprietary colleges to serve veterans. Institutions now face a painful choice: stop enrolling veterans or risk losing eligibility entirely. Either outcome punishes veterans for choosing the schools that work best for them.
02Quality Standards
The Rule Ignores Educational Quality - Completely
The 90/10 Rule measures only one thing: where tuition dollars come from. It does not look at graduation rates, job placement rates, earnings outcomes, loan repayment, licensure pass rates, or any other measure of whether students actually succeed. A college with 95% graduation rates and zero loan defaults can still be forced to close, while a poor-performing school with wealthier students passes with no problem. This is not accountability - it's financial discrimination.
03Discriminatory
Only Proprietary Colleges Face This Rule - Nobody Else
Public universities and private nonprofit colleges have no comparable restriction. Community colleges could receive over 90% of their revenue from federal sources with zero penalty. A public community college and a proprietary career college can serve the exact same students, in the same city, in the same nursing program - but only the proprietary college stands to possibly face closure and loss of federal student aid funding eligibility. The only difference is tax status. That is discrimination without rational policy justification.
04Perverse Incentives
Reducing Tuition Actually Gets Schools Punished
The rule is broken: if a school lowers tuition to make education more affordable, it worsens its 90/10 ratio and risks federal sanctions. Why? Because federal aid amounts stay largely fixed, so reducing tuition reduces students' out-of-pocket payments - one of the few allowed aspects holding up the "10" side. Meanwhile, schools that raise tuition improve their compliance score. The 90/10 Rule is a hidden regulatory floor on tuition prices that keeps college costs high.
05Uncontrollable Factors
Schools Are Punished for the Economy - Not Their Performance
When a recession hits and students lose jobs, they rely more heavily on federal aid. The school did nothing wrong - but its 90/10 ratio spikes. During COVID-19, one Louisiana college saw its ratio jump 6 percentage points in a single year. In Florida, 38% more proprietary colleges crossed the 80% threshold during COVID compared to the prior year. Schools are being held accountable for macroeconomic forces entirely outside their control.
06Stacked Calculation
The Government's Own Math Inflates the Numbers
Under a prior administration's creation, the Department of Education's "Presumption Rule" requires institutions to assume federal dollars are always applied to tuition first - even when some employers, private scholarships, or institutional aid are paying directly. This regulatory sleight-of-hand inflates the federal percentage. Many forms of employer reimbursements, private scholarships, and institutional grants are excluded from the favorable "10" calculation. The rule is stacked against schools that serve working adults with real-world financial support.
07Access & Equity
Serving Low-Income Students Becomes a Liability
The 90/10 Rule structurally penalizes schools for serving the students who need the most help. Institutions dedicated to veterans, working adults, first-generation students, and low-income communities will always have higher federal aid utilization - not because they are failing, but because their students qualify for more assistance. Federal policy claims to expand access for underserved students, but the 90/10 Rule punishes every school that takes that mission seriously.
In 2022, proprietary (privately-owned) colleges trained a significant share of workers in the nation's most critical and in-demand fields. The 90/10 Rule threatens this entire pipeline.
Career & Technical Education
70%+
Medical Assistants
of degrees & certificates
19%
Nurses
Associate & Bachelor's degrees
50%+
Bus & Truck Drivers
CDL training programs
36%
Electricians
apprenticeship & certificate
28%
Plumbers
trade certificate programs
41%
Aircraft Mechanics & Technicians
FAA-certified programs
The U.S. faces shortages of over 100,000 truck drivers, critical nursing gaps, and a retiring skilled trades workforce. Proprietary colleges fill these gaps - often in communities where public colleges simply don't offer these programs or can't accommodate working adults' schedules.
Source: IPEDS, 2023. Career Education in the United States, CECU, 2024.
Already Heavily Regulated
Proprietary Colleges Are Among the Most Regulated in America
Strong laws and administrative quality checks are already in place to prevent fraud, deception, and abusive recruiting. Multiple layers of federal and state oversight exist. When rules are violated, regulators have the authority to act.
U.S. Dept. of Education
Title IV eligibility, gainful employment, cohort default rates, financial responsibility
Dept. of Veterans Affairs
VA approval for GI Bill programs, oversight of veteran education benefits
College Accreditors
Regional & national accreditation standards for academic quality and student outcomes
State Licensing Bodies
State authorization requirements, program licensing, consumer protection
Federal Trade Commission
Prohibition on deceptive advertising, misleading job placement claims
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Oversight of student lending and financial disclosures
Dept. of Justice
Enforcement of federal fraud statutes and False Claims Act violations
State Attorneys General
State consumer protection law enforcement, deceptive practices investigations
The 90/10 Rule Does Not Target Misconduct.
Rules already exist to protect students from bad actors. Every layer of oversight above has tools to act when violations occur. The 90/10 Rule doesn't punish fraud or poor outcomes - it punishes veterans for their school choice and schools for serving low-income students. That is not accountability. That is discrimination.
Resources & Publications
Who's Speaking Out for Repeal
Organizations across the political spectrum are calling on Congress to repeal the 90/10 Rule. Read the letters.
Defense One-Pager2026
Fix the 90/10 Rule
90/10 Rule Repeal Is a Defense Issue: NDAA One-Pager
A concise one-pager on why repealing the 90/10 Rule belongs in the NDAA. The U.S. faces a 514,000+ cyber talent gap, and proprietary colleges produce over 12% of cyber graduates, 37% of Homeland Security bachelor's grads, and 41% of aircraft mechanics, yet the rule restricts them and penalizes enrolling veterans.
90/10 Repeal Added to AFPI's “Save America” Agenda
The America First Policy Institute has formally included repeal of the workforce-damaging 90/10 Rule in its “Save America” agenda, submitted to Congress as its key priorities for Reconciliation 3.0. The agenda lays out five elements to protect our nation's economic growth and security, and the provision calling for the full “elimination” of the Rule appears in the “Grow Our Economy” section. Whether or not repeal ultimately arrives through reconciliation, its inclusion reflects growing recognition among thought leaders that the 90/10 Rule is fundamentally at odds with the Administration's workforce and economic priorities and must be prioritized for the sake of American prosperity and education rights. The Rule applies solely to proprietary institutions, penalizes schools for enrolling veterans and low-income federal aid recipients, and creates a perverse incentive that discourages tuition reductions - all without measuring program quality or student outcomes.
“Create more affordable alternatives to 4-year degrees by returning education authority to the states, removing barriers to career and technical education, and fully eliminating the onerous and divisive 90/10 rule that limits for-profit institutions' federal funding ratios and further investment to students.”
Senate Republican Wants to Scrap Biden Rule That Punishes Career Schools and Vets
The Daily Caller reports on Sen. Jim Banks' introduction of the PARITY Act, which would repeal the 90/10 Rule - a regulation critics say was weaponized under the Biden administration to unfairly target career schools and limit veteran enrollment. Military groups note that if the rule applied equally, 80% of public two-year colleges would be out of compliance.
Signed by: National Defense Committee, Vietnam Veterans of America, Korean War Veterans Association + 6 more
Military & Veteran Organizations Letter to Senator Banks
Nine military and veteran advocacy organizations - including the National Defense Committee, Vietnam Veterans of America, and the Korean War Veterans Association - urge Senator Jim Banks to advance the PARITY Act and permanently repeal the 90/10 Rule.
Signed by: Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, American Principles Project + 6 more
Coalition Letter to Senator Cassidy - PARITY Act Support
Consumer Action for a Strong Economy and allied organizations urge the Senate HELP Committee to advance the PARITY Act, calling the 90/10 Rule an arbitrary, biased relic that hurts minority, low-income, and veteran students most.
Author: Mark Kantrowitz, Senior Vice President & Publisher, Edvisors.com
Consequences of the 90/10 Rule - Academic Research Report
A peer-reviewed analysis by Mark Kantrowitz (Edvisors.com) finds that if the 90/10 Rule applied to all colleges equally, only 60% of public 4-year colleges and just 20% of public 2-year colleges (community colleges) would likely pass - compared to 84% of private for-profit colleges. The rule disproportionately targets institutions serving low-income, minority, veteran, and first-generation students.
