Republicans try to protect ministry students from losing federal aid under new Trump rules

A new U.S. Senate bill seeks to protect college students preparing for religious vocations from losing federal aid under a new earnings test.

Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced the Religious Education Fairness Act last week to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to protect theology and religious studies programs at schools that qualify for Title IX’s religious exemption so they can keep access to federal student aid even if their graduates may not earn as much as those in other fields.

The amended law would “provide that educational programs classified as Theology and Religious Vocations or Philosophy and Religious Studies at educational institutions that qualify for the religious exemption under title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 are not subject to ineligibility for title IV assistance based on low earning outcomes.”

Lankford, who formerly led a large Baptist youth camp, said in a statement that students who feel “called to pastor a church or serve as a missionary should not lose access to student aid because Washington measures the value of that calling by a paycheck.”

In July, the U.S. Department of Education published a final rule that holds college programs accountable for how much their graduates earn. Programs with low earnings outcomes can lose eligibility for federal student aid. Critics argue that because many faith-based jobs pay modest salaries, the rule could hurt many students studying for ministry.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative legal group that has successfully argued First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, voiced its support for the bill.

“Young people who go into ministry are not in it for the money. Their calling is to serve God and to serve their neighbors — and the government shouldn’t punish students who pursue a religious vocation just because, in its judgment, they won’t earn ‘enough’ income,” ADF Senior Counsel Greg Baylor said in a statement.

“ADF commends Sens. Lankford and Cruz for introducing the Religious Education Fairness Act, which corrects this problem by preserving federal loans, grants, and other support for the next generation of our nation’s faith leaders to pursue the education and vocation to which they are called.”

Other organizations backing the bill include the Association for Biblical Higher Education, the Orthodox Union, the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges & Schools, the International Alliance for Christian Education and the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities.

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent defended the rule in a press release issued in late June, saying it “will drive down the cost of higher education and hold all institutions, regardless of sector, accountable for low earnings outcomes.”

“If a program cannot show that it leaves its graduates financially better off than if they had never enrolled, it should not be underwritten by federal taxpayers,” Kent said.

“Amid rising rates of default and delinquency in the $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio, this new accountability framework is a responsible policy that will safeguard American taxpayer dollars and protect students from taking on unmanageable debt for programs that cannot demonstrate a reasonable return on investment.”

The Association for Biblical Higher Education, which oversees 165 institutions with a combined 86,639 students, has objected to stripping federal aid from ministry students, saying the government's broad characterization of higher education is “one of the missteps."

“Oftentimes, people are responding to God’s call to be a pastor, to be a youth pastor, to be a missionary and they’re not in it to make money,” ABHE President Philip Dearborn told The Christian Post in May. “Obviously, the legislation did not intentionally disproportionately impact religious higher education. That was something that the department figured out after the legislation was passed, and it’s very clear that it disproportionately impacts our institutions.”