Companion Article: Three Things Religious Institutions Should Know About ED’s Proposed Higher Education Rule
Many Americans can probably remember moments in high school when teachers or counselors encouraged students to think seriously about future careers by discussing average salaries and earning potential. I remember those conversations well. Engineers, physicians, and other technical professions were often presented as among the most financially rewarding and stable paths a student could pursue.
Those conversations were not inherently wrong. Financial stability matters. Students should thoughtfully consider the practical realities connected to career decisions and educational debt.
Yet even as a student, I remember finding those arguments only partially persuasive. Having grown up in a Pentecostal community, I had also been taught to think about vocation differently, not merely in terms of salary or status, but in terms of calling, spiritual giftedness, service, and faithfulness. The central question was not simply, “What career will earn the most?” but also, “What kind of work is God calling me to pursue?”
The U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) proposed higher education accountability rule raises an important question that extends far beyond technical regulatory debates:
What is higher education ultimately for?
The Department’s proposal seeks to strengthen accountability in higher education by tying federal student aid eligibility to graduate earnings outcomes. At one level, this objective is understandable. Students and families deserve transparency about educational costs, debt burdens, and career outcomes. Government has a legitimate interest in reducing waste, fraud, and abuse within programs that receive federal aid.
But the structure of the proposed rule also reflects a deeper assumption, that the value of education can largely be measured through economic return.
That assumption deserves closer examination.
Education Is More Than Economic Production
A healthy society certainly needs engineers, accountants, software developers, and medical professionals. Economic productivity matters. But a society ordered only around earnings and efficiency runs the risk of being unable to recognize goods that cannot be measured primarily in financial terms. After all, economic enterprise is only one of many responsibilities that persons created in the image of God exercise.
Teachers, social workers, missionaries, pastors, counselors, nonprofit leaders, and caregivers often enter vocations that are indispensable to communities while offering comparatively modest compensation. Their work reflects the exercise of a wide range of responsibilities that humans possess and often generates immense social, moral, relational, and religious value even when it does not produce comparatively high salaries.
Yet under earnings-centered accountability systems, programs preparing students for these vocations may increasingly be treated as low-value educational pathways.
This is especially concerning for religious institutions whose missions are not reducible to workforce or economic optimization.
The Importance of Institutional Diversity
In a pluralistic society, institutions serve different purposes. Some universities may emphasize cutting-edge research or economic competitiveness. Others may prioritize civic formation, classical education, moral development, or religious formation.
Faith-based institutions often understand education as part of a broader moral and religious calling. For many faith-based colleges, seminaries, and ministry-training programs, preparing students for lives of service and faithfulness is central to their institutional identity.
The problem arises when public policy pressures all higher education institutions and students toward a single model of success, stifling their opportunities to exercise God-given responsibilities that extend beyond economic enterprise.
When graduate earnings become the dominant metric of educational value, institutions can begin to feel pressure to:
- eliminate programs tied to lower-paying vocations,
- steer students away from ministry and service-oriented careers, or
- reshape their missions around economic outcomes rather than formative purposes.
Over time, this can narrow the diversity of educational visions that help sustain a free and pluralistic society.
A Society Needs More Than Consumers
Religious freedom and institutional pluralism are not merely private interests. They contribute to the common good.
Communities need well-trained pastors, rabbis, chaplains, counselors, missionaries, and religious educators. Congregations depend upon institutions willing to invest in theological and ministerial formation even when those pathways are not financially lucrative.
A society that values only economically optimized outcomes risks undervaluing vocations rooted in sacrifice, service, caregiving, and spiritual leadership.
This concern is not an argument against accountability. Transparency matters. Students should understand the financial realities connected to educational decisions. Institutions should act responsibly.
But accountability frameworks should also recognize that human flourishing cannot be fully captured through salary data alone.
Recovering a Broader Vision of Education
Higher education has always served multiple purposes:
- transmitting knowledge,
- cultivating wisdom,
- forming citizens,
- preparing students for vocations,
- strengthening communities, and, for many religious institutions,
- nurturing faith and moral formation.
A free society benefits when different institutions pursue these aims in different ways.
The challenge before policymakers is not whether accountability matters, but whether government and accountability systems can recognize in law the non-political responsibilities that belong to persons created in the image of God and preserve room for institutional diversity, religious freedom, and differing understandings of vocation and human flourishing.
The answer to that question will shape not only the future of religious higher education, but the broader vision of public justice that guides American public life.
For some students, higher education will rightly be oriented toward maximizing economic opportunity. But for others, education is also about preparing for ministry, service, caregiving, teaching, counseling, or other vocations rooted in conviction and calling rather than financial return.
I still remember hearing high school teachers discuss the salaries associated with various professions and understanding why those arguments mattered. But I also remember learning from my religious community that a meaningful life will never be measured by income alone.
Dr. Girien Salazar is the Director of Faith-Based Policy and Research at the Center for Public Justice (CPJ). Girien’s non-profit leadership experience includes roles as Executive Director of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), Director of Development at The Philos Project, Director of Development at Nelson University, and service on non-profit, local, and state boards such as the Latin American Heritage Society, San Antonio Parks and Recreation, and OneStar National Service Commission Board in Texas. Girien holds a Bachelor of Science in Church Ministry and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Nelson University and a Doctor of Philosophy in Leadership Studies from Dallas Baptist University. A U.S. Navy veteran, he served eight years as a Religious Programs Specialist and was honorably discharged at the rank of Petty Officer 1st Class.
