Student loan scorecard gets real data: earnings, debt, repayment rates
S. 2700 — DECIDE Act · Filed by Jon Husted (R-OH) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Sep 3, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Department of Education to expand the College Scorecard with detailed program-level and institution-level data on student loan outcomes, including median earnings 10 years after enrollment, median debt at repayment, default rates, and repayment rates. Borrowers and prospective students will see concrete information about how much graduates earn, how much debt they carry, and whether they successfully repay their loans—enabling better-informed decisions about which programs and schools to attend.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a data-disclosure requirement: the Secretary of Education must populate the College Scorecard with standardized metrics on earnings, debt, and repayment outcomes. It is a transparency and accountability measure, not a subsidy, restriction on borrowers, or regulatory carve-out.
What the text implies
- Institutions with poor repayment or default rates will face public visibility of those metrics, potentially affecting enrollment and reputation—creating indirect pressure on schools to improve outcomes or risk student flight.
- The 10-year earnings lag means data will reflect labor-market conditions from a decade prior, potentially obscuring current program value or misrepresenting fields undergoing rapid change.
- Median metrics mask variation: a program with high median earnings but extreme outliers (e.g., a few high earners and many low earners) will appear stronger than the typical borrower's experience.
- Institutions may face pressure to exclude or discourage enrollment of students perceived as higher-risk for default, potentially creating disparate impact on lower-income or first-generation borrowers if schools use scorecard data to triage admissions.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary borrowers and prospective students gain access to material information about program outcomes and debt burdens that was previously unavailable or scattered, enabling more informed educational and borrowing decisions. The bill imposes no new costs on borrowers and creates no new restrictions on their rights or remedies.
Named in the bill
Department of Education, College Scorecard, Federal Direct Stafford Loans, Graduate Federal Direct PLUS Loans, Parent Federal Direct PLUS Loans, Higher Education Act of 1965, AIG, FBK, FMAO, PFG, PRU
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Sep 3, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 3, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,085 characters) on Aug 15, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
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