Mia Love's 'Student Right To Know Before You Go' Act Pushes Colleges To Provide More Data

U.S. Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, led a bipartisan group of sponsors this week backing legislation that would give students and their parents more information about colleges to help them pick the best school. Love and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., introduced the "Student Right To Know Before You Go" Act in the House on Thursday, the Deseret News reported.

The bill, formally titled H.R. 2518, would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require institutions to provide figures like student transfer rates and earnings after graduation. It would create an easy-to-use online database so students and families can get "a more complete picture of their education" before making a decision about where they should go to college, according to a news release. “Prospective students are making costly and critical decisions about their education with very little or inaccurate information,” Love said in the release.

Reps. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., John Carney, D-Del., Susan Davis, D-Calif., and Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., have also signed on to support the "Student Right To Know Before You Go Act" in the House. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate May 5 by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mark Warner, D-Va.

The title is a play on the 1990 "Student Right to Know" act, which forces higher education institutions eligible for Title IV funding to disclose completion rates and student athletes' aid. This version would keep individual students' data private but free up more information the public currently can't access, according to the release.

“As our students graduate with ever-growing student loans, we at least owe it to them to make sure their education is worth it,” Carney said. “Students deserve to know which schools will prepare them for finding a job and which won’t.”

Previous iterations of the "Student Right To Know Before You Go" Act, like one filed by Hunter in 2013, have died without being enacted.