DeVos Retracts Gainful Employment Rule for For Profit Colleges | Law & Crime

DeVos Retracts Gainful Employment Rule for For Profit Colleges | Law & Crime

DeVos Just Pulled a Full Marie Antoinette And Retracted Fraud Rules Against For-Profit Colleges

 

Welp, now we’ve at least closed the circle on Betsy DeVos and for-profit colleges. She’s gone from evading questions about whether she would regulate these fraud machines to disbanding the team charged with investigating them. Now, she flat out withdrew the gainful employment rule, signaling to all that under her watchful eye, the DeVrys, the Trump Universities, and the Corinthian Colleges are free to flourish – while unwitting students and their families can simply eat cake.

The “gainful employment rule,” you may remember, is the one adopted in 2016 under the Obama administration, after several cash-cow diploma mills found themselves defending fraud lawsuits brought by swindled students. The rule prohibited these businesses from using deceptive practices to entice customers to plunk down thousands in student loan money when the corresponding “degree” wasn’t worth the expensive paper on which it was printed. Or in other words, exactly what Trump University was accused of doing. It was also the rule Senator Elizabeth Warren skewered DeVos on at DeVos’ confirmation hearing.

In the DOE’s press release issued yesterday, Secretary DeVos unctuously couched her decision to eliminate oversight as a protection for higher ed students. “Students deserve useful and relevant data when making important decisions about their education post-high school,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. “That’s why instead of targeting schools simply by their tax status, this administration is working to ensure students have transparent, meaningful information about all colleges and all programs. Our new approach will aid students across all sectors of higher education and improve accountability.”

Let me get this straight. Harvard might also be swindling students, the difference between for-profit and non-profit is meaningless, and American consumers will be better protected if there are no rules. Gotcha. It’s Betsy’s world, and we’re just living in it. That logic sounds like it may have been part of the DeVry curriculum, brought to Ms. DeVos’ attention by her right-hand man, and diploma-mill professor emeritus Julian Schmoke.

Viewed in context with the rule’s past success, DeVos’ decision is Continue reading: DeVos Retracts Gainful Employment Rule for For Profit Colleges | Law & Crime