The U.S. Department of Education has published new draft rules for the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” accountability framework, including a new metric designed to measure the return on investment of degree programs at more than 4,000 colleges and universities. The proposed metric would compare graduates’ average earnings against a working adult with a high school credential for undergraduate programs and against bachelor’s-degree holders for graduate programs. If a program fails the test for two out of three consecutive years, it could lose access to federal student loans. In some cases, programs could eventually lose access to Pell Grant eligibility, depending on final policy design. The rule is slated for July 1 implementation only after a public comment period and department responses to submissions. Separately, the Department of Education has withdrawn a demand for repayment from the University of Arizona to recoup $72 million in borrower-defense loan debt discharges tied to students defrauded by Ashford University. ED’s Office of Federal Student Aid said it was not appropriate to pursue recoupment actions against Ashford’s successor structure—University of Arizona Global Campus—under the applicable authority. Together, the developments show ED pressing two levers at once: tighter program-level oversight of federal aid value, while also clarifying how borrower-defense recoupment will be applied to institutions connected to defrauded for-profit providers.