Indiana Governor Signs Bill to End Low-Earning Degrees

Indiana’s governor has signed into law a bill that aims to eliminate all academic programs at the state’s public universities and at Ivy Tech Community College that fail a new federal earnings test.

Congress created the Do No Harm test when it passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer. The test, which hasn’t yet taken effect, will generally require programs to show their graduates earn more on average than high school diploma earners (just over $35,000 in Indiana), or else students in those programs will no longer be able to receive federal student loans. Graduate and professional program earnings would further have to exceed bachelor’s degree earnings.

But Indiana’s Senate Bill 199 will make failing that test even more punitive in the Hoosier State. It adopts the federal test into state law and says programs that fail it must close entirely—unless the state Commission for Higher Education, a group of gubernatorial appointees, grants an exemption.

The state’s GOP-dominated General Assembly finished passing the legislation last month, and Republican governor Mike Braun signed it into law Thursday.