\n<\/p>\n
A new survey looks at general registered voter support for higher ed borrowing limits.<\/p>\n
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Liudmila Chernetska and DonNichols\/iStock\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n Majorities of registered voters support limiting federal loans for graduate students and approve of a new federal earnings test, according to poll results released Monday by Third Way, Global Strategy Group and GS Strategy Group. <\/p>\n The survey sought to measure approval for higher ed provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed into law last summer. <\/p>\n When given two stances on grad loan caps and asked to pick one, 57\u00a0percent agreed with the position that \u201cthere should be a cap\u00a0\u2026 because having access to unlimited loans inflates tuition, since graduate schools are free to raise prices if they know students will just borrow more to pay.\u201d Forty-three\u00a0percent agreed with the other position presented, that \u201cthere should not be a cap\u00a0\u2026 because everyone, no matter their background, should have the opportunity to attend the graduate program of their choosing.\u201d<\/p>\n Starting July 1, the legislation will cap federal loans for students in \u201cprofessional\u201d programs\u2014the proposed definition of which is controversial\u2014at up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 total. Grad students in nonprofessional programs will only be able to borrow up to $20,500 per year, or a total of $100,000.<\/p>\n The pollsters also explained generally to the survey takers how the Do No Harm federal earnings test works. Broadly, starting July 1, the test will require programs to show their graduates earn more on average than high school diploma recipients, or students attending those programs will be cut off from federal student loans. Graduate and professional program earnings would further have to exceed bachelor’s degree earnings.<\/p>\n After receiving the explanation, 28\u00a0percent of respondents said they strongly supported this test and 38\u00a0percent said they somewhat supported it. Only 19\u00a0percent said they somewhat or strongly opposed it, and 15\u00a0percent said they didn\u2019t know enough to say. <\/p>\n \u201cThere is a real hunger among voters for the government to hold higher education institutions\u2019 feet to the fire, and to push them toward greater accountability for students\u2019 outcomes,\u201d said Annie Norbitz, senior vice president for research at Global Strategy Group, which began as a Democratic polling firm but has broadened its scope.<\/p>\n Third Way is a think tank and advocacy group that says it hopes to empower the \u201ccenter left,\u201d while GS Strategy Group says it was founded by a Republican pollster and strategist.<\/p>\n The poll was conducted Nov. 4\u20139 and has a margin of error of 3.1\u00a0percentage points, the surveyors said. Of those respondents who were eligible to vote in 2024, 42\u00a0percent said they voted for Trump, the same share said they voted for Kamala Harris and 15\u00a0percent said they either didn\u2019t vote or voted for someone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new survey looks at general registered voter support for higher ed borrowing limits. Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Liudmila Chernetska and DonNichols\/iStock\/Getty Images Majorities of registered voters support limiting federal loans for graduate students and approve of a new federal earnings test, according to poll results released Monday by Third Way,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[5171,23691,6457,3340,334,694,2980],"class_list":{"0":"post-46359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-borrowing","9":"tag-generally","10":"tag-grad","11":"tag-limiting","12":"tag-school","13":"tag-support","14":"tag-voters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}