1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to oppose the Department of Education policy that can remove federal Direct Loan eligibility from educational programs based on the earnings of their graduates. I oppose this policy across the board. If graduates in certain professions are earning too little, then address why those professions are underpaid. Do not respond by making the education required to enter those professions harder or more expensive to obtain. I can speak especially clearly about mental health because I am a licensed mental health professional and have worked in this field for more than 20 years. I have a master’s degree because graduate education is required for the work I do. Mental health counseling is healthcare. It requires specialized education, supervised clinical experience, licensure, continuing education, and substantial professional responsibility. And yes, many mental health professionals are underpaid. I was underpaid for much of my own career in part because I served Medicaid clients and reimbursement was too low. That was not because the work required less education or because the services were unnecessary. It was because our healthcare system, including government reimbursement policy, did not invest adequately in mental health care. That makes this policy particularly backwards. Government policy can help keep a profession’s earnings low and then turn around and use those same low earnings as evidence that the educational program is not worth financing. If mental health professionals are not earning enough, examine Medicaid reimbursement, private insurance reimbursement, workforce shortages, and the enormous imbalance of bargaining power between individual providers and large insurance companies. Do not make it harder for future mental health professionals to finance the education they are required to have. You do not fix an underpaid healthcare workforce by restricting access to the education required to enter that workforce. And mental health is only one example. I reject the idea that the value of education can be reduced to the median salary attached to a degree. English, history, religious studies, the humanities, education, social services, healthcare fields, and other disciplines do not become worthless simply because some of their graduates earn less than graduates in more highly compensated fields. There is also an obvious disparate-impact concern. Many of the helping, education, and social-service professions vulnerable to low earnings are heavily female-dominated. Whether or not disadvantaging women was the stated purpose of this policy, making education harder to finance in female-dominated professions will predictably place a heavier burden on women. If compensation is inadequate in important professions, fix the compensation problem. Do not answer low wages by restricting education. Do not make Americans less educated because our economy has chosen to underpay certain kinds of work. Congress should act to reverse this policy and protect federal student-loan access across disciplines.