Earlier this year, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced her plan to roll back Obama-era enforcement that’d protect students from predatory for-profit programs. Now 18 Attorney Generals have teamed up to fight back, according to BuzzFeed News.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has made a rollback of President Obama's higher education policy a signature piece of her agenda, has begun to dismantle an Obama-era rule called "gainful employment," which cuts off federal financial aid funding to career college programs that saddle students with heavy debt and low salaries.
At the for-profit Art Institutes of Phoenix, for example, students in the fashion design program, which failed gainful employment metrics, took in less than $25,000 a year, but had to pay $6,200 toward their loans — more than 25% of their discretionary income. The rules would have required the program to inform graduates of their poor outcomes, and would eventually have prohibited students from taking out loans to attend.
Unfortunately, a billionaire like DeVos would struggle to understand just how useful that information would be—and how devastating falling victim to predatory educational programs can be. That’s why the Attorney Generals of 17 states and Washington, D.C. teamed up to sue.
In a suit filed Tuesday, DeVos's opponents argue that the education secretary is breaking the law by refusing to enforce Obama's rules — which have been repeatedly upheld by courts — despite waves of legal challenges by the for-profit college industry. She is obligated, the Democratic state attorneys general argue, to enforce the regulations as written.
Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill told BuzzFeed News that the lawsuit is merely a “legal stunt.”