A bipartisan group of 20 senators sent a letter this week to the U.S. Education Department (ED) asking to delay the institutional reporting deadline for gainful employment (GE) and financial value transparency (FVT) to July 2025.
ED originally set the reporting deadline for July 31. In March, the agency extended it to October 1 after significant delays in delivering the user guide and related detailed reporting requirements to colleges. However, many colleges do not feel that they can become fully compliant by the new deadline.
Most importantly, colleges have still not received accurate “completers lists” from ED – a critical data set that will undergird the GE determinations and the information on program outcomes presented to students and families. In fact, because of errors detected in the completers list, ED told institutions on August 30 to pause reviewing them.
The American Association of Community Colleges has also communicated with ED in an effort to persuade the department to delay the October 1 reporting requirement.
Strain on financial aid offices
As the senators cite in their letter, institutions’ capacity concerns also loom large as the October 1 deadline approaches. Institutional GE/FVT reporting will require significant involvement from financial aid offices, who continue to deal with the fallout from the flawed rollout of the 2024-25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). As a result, many of these offices are still working around the clock to address issues with students’ FAFSAs, to package aid offers, and to do so without key functionalities, like batch corrections.
The senators urge the department to delay GE/FVT reporting to allow these offices to devote their time to ensuring that students receive financial aid and enroll and succeed in college during a difficult award year.
