After a few false starts, yesterday the Department of Education (DOE) released the controversial gainful employment regulations. Education officials say these regulations will alleviate some of the worst abuses at for-profit education colleges. CREW is not an education policy organization so we can’t judge whether the regulations are likely to work as intended, but everyone can agree the industry needs some reform.
The gainful employment regulations might have been issued much sooner had it not been for CREW’s dogged efforts to uncover the extent of Wall Street investors’ influence on Education’s regulatory process. We revealed the discussions between well-known short-seller Steve Eisman and his colleagues and top Education officials like Bob Shireman. We found it odd that Education would work with Eisman, who was no education policy expert and stood to benefit financially from new regulations that would push down stock prices in the for-profit sector.
DOE would like to put this whole matter behind it now that the regulations have been released, but important questions remain unanswered. We still don’t know the extent of short-sellers’ efforts to manipulate the regulatory process, but we asked the SEC to investigate whether there was any market manipulation – a call echoed by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) and the National Legal and Polic
