Elizabeth Warren questions the hiring of for-profit-college officials at the Education Department
Updated with response from Education Department.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is asking Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to explain the hiring of two officials with ties to the for-profit-college industry, questioning their roles and potential conflicts of interest.
Warren, a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, sent a letter to DeVoson Friday raising concerns about Robert S. Eitel and Taylor Hansen. Eitel, as first reported in the New York Times, has taken unpaid leave from Bridgepoint Education, an operator of for-profit colleges where he works as an attorney, to serve as a special assistant to DeVos. Hansen, a former lobbyist at the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (now called Career Education Colleges and Universities), told ProPublica that he was hired on a temporary basis at the department.
Their appointments come as the Education Department has extended the deadline for career schools and community colleges that provide vocational training to submit appeals under the gainful employment rule. The controversial regulation threatens to withhold federal financial aid from institutions whose graduates are unable to earn enough to repay their student loans.
[Feds say too many career-training programs, for-profit schools leaving graduates saddled with debt]
For-profit colleges have lobbied against the rule for years, arguing that it unfairly targets the sector and would ultimately hurt the low-income students they educate. Their protests fell on deaf ears during the Obama administration, but the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have taken up the cause with promises to roll back the rule.
In her letter, Warren questions the timing of the extension and Hansen’s hiring because he lobbied against the gainful rule, according to the Senate Office of Public Records Lobbying Disclosure databases. She said his “recent employment history clearly calls into question his impartiality in dealing with higher education issues at the Department of Education, and raises alarming conflicts of interest concerns.”
Hansen, she added, also may have other conflicts of interest related to the student loan program because his father, Bill Hansen, is president of United Student Aid Funds, a company that collects education debt. The Continue reading: Elizabeth Warren questions the hiring of for-profit-college officials at the Education Department - The Washington Post
