Feds: More than 800 career programs are failing their grads

Hundreds of for-profit college programs are at risk of losing federal funding after failing to meet new "gainful employment" standards.

The Education Department on Monday released its first data measuring whether graduates of 8,700 vocational programs earn enough money to repay student loans. A program is considered failing if typical graduates pay at least 12 percent of their annual earnings or 30 percent of their discretionary income on loans.

The department found that 800 programs are failing, almost all of them at for-profit colleges. Programs that fail twice in three years can lose access to federal funding.

Education Secretary John B. King Jr. says the data show which programs leave students worse off than they started.

For-profit colleges have widely opposed the rules, saying they will hurt thousands of students.