Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has taken another step to undo protections against predatory lending practices by for-profit colleges.
As expected, the DOE has proposed rescinding the Gainful Employment regulation, which requires for-profit schools to prepare students for a job in a recognized occupation or for a degree program at a nonprofit or public institution in order to participate in federal student loan programs.
(Related: Education Department Wants to Limit Debt Relief for Defrauded Students)
DeVos, in a statement, said the current rule, enacted by the Obama administration, targets schools “simply by their tax status” and the department plans to update its College Scorecard or similar web-based tool to provide information about median debt and median earnings for all [our italics] higher-education programs that participate in federal student financial aid programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
According to The Chronicle of Education, 98% of the education programs that failed the Gainful Employment rule in 2017 — one-tenth of all programs failed — were for-profit institutions.
The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposed regulation once it’s published in the Federal Register.
This latest proposal from the Trump Education Department, like others before it, including plans to limit debt relief and loan forgiveness for student borrowers, was met with strong criticism.