Teachers union sues Betsy DeVos for overturning Obama-era rule
Category: News & Politics
Via: tessylo • 4 years ago • 20 commentsBy: Aarthi Swaminathan, Yahoo Finance
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Teachers union sues Betsy DeVos for overturning Obama-era rule
America’s second-largest teachers’ union is suing the Department of Education and its secretary Betsy DeVos over her reversal of a rule that was designed to protect student loan borrowers attending for-profit schools.
“You can gauge a person’s soul by how they respond in a crisis,” American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “It’s telling that Betsy DeVos, when confronted with the biggest student debt disaster in American history, decides once again to side with profiteers, not borrowers.”
The 2014 gainful employment rule was created by the Obama administration to ensure that for-profit schools — which consistently cause students to not only incur heavy loads of student debt but also end up with weak career prospects — were denied access to federal student aid.
“DeVos jumped in bed with the for-profit industry early on in her tenure,” A.J. Angulo, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and an expert on for-profit schools, told Yahoo Finance. “Among the first few hires at the Education Department were for-profit lobbyists like Taylor Hansen , who had been in charge of fighting gainful employment rules on behalf of industry. It's no surprise DeVos repealed the rule."
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos testifies during a hearing before House Education and Labor Committee in December 2019. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
AFT Weingarten accused DeVos of writing a new rule “on behalf of her for-profit college friends … We are confident the court will reject this illegal gambit and back the students DeVos has shafted over and over again.”
The lawsuit , filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, stated that they “seek a declaration that [DeVos’ rule] violates the [Higher Education Act] and is arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law. Plaintiffs also request an order vacating the Repeal in its entirety.”
ED spokesperson Angela Morabito told NPR that it doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but added that the department “will vigorously defend its final regulation rescinding this deeply flawed rule."
The rule ‘at least held for-profits accountable’
According to ED in 2014 , it estimated that 1,400 programs serving 840,000 students — 99% of whom were at for-profit institutions — would not pass the accountability standards under the gainful employment rule.
The for-profit higher education sector saw tremendous growth after the 2008 Financial Crisis. In 2016, the New York Fed noted that enrollment at these schools had “ skyrocketed ” as the country emerged out of the Great Recession. Debt levels rose as well as students graduating from for-profit institutions generally hold far higher levels of debt than those attending other institutions.
The gainful employment rule, which addressed this imbalance, was officially reversed by DeVos in 2019 and will be effective as of July 1, 2020.
In reversing the rule, DeVos had promised to improve transparency between prospective students and schools by publishing earnings data for all college programs as part of ED’s College Scorecard website .
Angulo added that while he agreed that the old rule was “flawed,” it still had merits: “[T]he gainful employment rule at least held for-profits accountable for disproportionately high tuition rates . Remember, Strayer [University] paid its CEO a salary of $42 million in 2010 for running an institution the size of Ohio State [University]. Ohio's president made about 1/42 of that unjustifiable salary."
A security guard inside Everest College keeps people away after the embattled for-profit Santa Ana school was shut down along with 28 others. (Photo: Mindy Schauer/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
Opposition to DeVos’ reversal of rules on higher ed mount
Wednesday’s filing is the latest lawsuit the AFT has brought against ED and DeVos, the most recent being a call for the department to fix to its Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.
The PSLF program, which permits student borrowers with Direct Loans to have their remaining loans forgiven if they “make 120 qualifying monthly payments under a qualifying repayment plan, while working full-time for a qualifying employer,” had a dismal acceptance rate of less than 1%.
The opposition to the Education Secretary’s decision to reverse the gainful employment rule also comes after House Democrats recently voted to overturn another DeVos reversal regarding a different Obama-era regulation related to for-profit colleges.
The latest pushback “goes to show that regulating ain’t easy. The secretary has a lot of latitude, but she has to consider all of the relevant evidence and have a reasoned basis for her rules,” James Kvaal, president of the nonprofit Institute for College Access & Success who also helped design the original rule, told Yahoo Finance. “The slapdash way they put these regulations together is catching up to them.”
Other lawsuits filed by various consumer advocacy groups — and not just the AFT — are putting pressure on DeVos to reconsider her actions.
“Already the legal losses have forced the Department to discharge loans from students attending closed schools, ban mandatory arbitration, and reconsider plans to give defrauded students only partial relief,” said Kvaal. “I expect that she will lose more cases in the future.”
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America’s second-largest teachers’ union is suing the Department of Education and its secretary Betsy DeVos over her reversal of a rule that was designed to protect student loan borrowers attending for-profit schools.
“You can gauge a person’s soul by how they respond in a crisis,” American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “It’s telling that Betsy DeVos, when confronted with the biggest student debt disaster in American history, decides once again to side with profiteers, not borrowers.”
The 2014 gainful employment rule was created by the Obama administration to ensure that for-profit schools — which consistently cause students to not only incur heavy loads of student debt but also end up with weak career prospects — were denied access to federal student aid.
“DeVos jumped in bed with the for-profit industry early on in her tenure,” A.J. Angulo, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and an expert on for-profit schools, told Yahoo Finance. “Among the first few hires at the Education Department were for-profit lobbyists like Taylor Hansen , who had been in charge of fighting gainful employment rules on behalf of industry. It's no surprise DeVos repealed the rule."
She is bat shit crazy and needs to not be in ANY position of authority.
She is a greedy rich bitch and you can be assured that a lot of these profiteers are lining her pockets.
Mr I have a pen and cell phone strikes again. This is not a law; but a rule created by EO or EA.
Good luck with the lawsuit. Hope the judge gives those filing it the smack down they deserve. EO's/EA's are not laws. Seems the left still hasn't learned that after all this time.
How many EOs EAs has this shitstain of a 'president' written?
Who the hell cares? What does that have to do with anything?
Most of Trumps EOs/EAs are undoing ones Obama wrote.
These are not laws. They can be undone by any administration. This is what happens when Congress is bypassed. This is just another bitch and whine article complaining that Trump won't honor what Obama wrote.
Fucking Duh! You brought it up for Christ's sake.
I am not the one posting an article about the Trump administration ending Obama EO's and EA's, and moronic lawsuit trying to get them enforced as laws.
I know many on the right are fascinated by the fact that pens and cell phones exist.
Yes, and many on the left still think EOs & EAs still carry the same weight as a law passed by Congress.
More of trumps brilliance...
Hiring someone who doesn't believe in public schools to be head of education in the USA.
Yes folks, trump is really that fucking stupid.
She paid for that position.
Lining her pockets just like tRump and the rest of his administration of grifters, gangsters, thugs, and thieves.
More brilliance is believing in the greatness and infallibility of public education.
You notice that Obama didn't subject the public schools to the same test.
Of course not. That would have upset one of his key backers and campaign contributors- the teachers union.
Yes Sir
What, no traction on your Laura Ingraham article Vic?
It's only been posted 10 minutes ago. It takes a little while just to read it. Is that what you want to talk about? How about the topic here?
BTW, when you address a comment to me you should use the reply button.
Why was my response deleted????
Reported
Report away.