College Bill Threatens Student Aid: Universities Must Use E-Verify or Lose All Federal Funding

The College Employment Accountability Act is straightforward: it ties a school’s ability to receive federal funding directly to its employment practices. Specifically, any college or university that takes federal student aid money—think Pell Grants, federal student loans, and institutional aid—must now use the federal E-Verify Program to check the employment eligibility of all new hires (SEC. 3).

But here’s the part that hits hard: if a school is caught violating Section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act—meaning they are found to be employing workers unauthorized to work in the U.S.—they immediately become ineligible for all federal funding. This isn't a slap on the wrist; it’s a financial guillotine for the institution and a potential catastrophe for its students (SEC. 2).

The New Compliance Mandate: E-Verify or Bust

For most universities, this means a significant administrative shift. E-Verify is a system run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that checks employment authorization against government records. If a school currently receives federal student aid dollars, they now have a mandatory new compliance layer. This means more paperwork, more internal auditing, and potentially more administrative costs, which, let's be honest, often get passed down to students in the form of fees.

High Stakes: DHS Takes Over Monitoring

What makes this bill unique is the enforcement mechanism. It tasks the Department of Homeland Security with actively policing higher education employment. DHS is required to check every six months to make sure every federally funded school is participating in E-Verify. More importantly, if DHS finds a school is either not using E-Verify or has violated the law by hiring an unauthorized worker, they must notify the Department of Education within 10 days (SEC. 4).

This creates a high-pressure environment. Imagine a major state university with thousands of employees. An administrative error or a single violation in a remote campus department could trigger the immediate loss of billions in federal funding. The stakes are massive, and the monitoring is constant.

The Real-World Impact on Students

While the bill is aimed at institutional accountability regarding immigration enforcement, the biggest collateral damage will be the students. If a university loses its federal funding eligibility, it can no longer process Pell Grants or federal student loans. For a student relying on federal aid to cover tuition and living expenses—say, a single parent working full-time while earning a degree—that money disappears overnight.

This isn't just a hypothetical scenario. If a school is deemed non-compliant, thousands of students could suddenly find their financial aid cut off mid-semester, forcing them to drop out, transfer, or shoulder massive, unexpected costs. The penalty for an institutional hiring mistake is directly borne by the student body, making this a severe and disproportionate consequence.