Seventeen states and the District of Columbia sued U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Tuesday for what they allege is the “unlawful” delay of the gainful employment rule meant to stop predatory practices by the for-profit college industry.
“The Department of Education is again eliminating crucial protections for student borrowers,” said Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, who is leading the coalition of states and D.C. in the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Students seek higher education degrees to get better, higher paying jobs,” Frosh said. “When predatory institutions fail to deliver the education and training they promise, students are saddled with burdensome debt, and their employment prospects are not improved.”
The 37-page complaint asks the court to declare as unlawful the delay notices that DeVos issued earlier this year on the enforcement of gainful employment; to vacate the delay notices and order that the gainful employment rule be “enforced in its entirety.”
The lawsuit opens up yet another litigious chapter for a rule that has spurred litigation from its start during the administration of President Barack Obama, when the for-profit college sector sued to block its implementation.
Antoinette Flores, a senior policy analyst of postsecondary education policy at the Center for American Progress, said the lawsuit is a “welcome” one.
“The gainful employment rule is a crucial measure for holding career training programs accountable so they cannot receive substantial sums of taxpayer money without producing a meaningful return,” Flores said. “If this regulation goes away, career training programs and schools could go back to ripping off students through low-quality programs and some will continue to engage in deliberate predatory marketing to low-income people and veterans.”
