Betsy DeVos denounced for student debt relief rule change that critics say ‘Takes a scythe to defrauded borrowers’
“With this policy overhaul, Secretary DeVos has cemented her legacy as best friend to predatory colleges and enemy to the students they rip off.”
Critics condemned Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Friday for replacing Obama-era federal loan forgiveness regulations for student borrowers who claim that they were defrauded by their schools with new policies that could make it more difficult to access relief.
“On the Friday of Labor Day weekend, Betsy DeVos is gleefully forcing hundreds of thousands of students defrauded by for-profit colleges to suffer yet another indignity,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement. “Shame on her.”
Outlining the policy changes, which the Department of Education announced late Friday, The New York Times reported:
The new rules apply to federal student loans made from July 2020 onward. They will replace a set of policies, completed by the Obama administration in 2016, that Ms. DeVos had delayed carrying out until a court ordered her to do so last year.Under the new rules, borrowers seeking loan forgiveness will have much higher hurdles to clear. They will need to prove that their college made a deceptive statement “with knowledge of its false, misleading, or deceptive nature or with reckless disregard for the truth,” and that they relied on the claim in deciding to enroll or stay at the school. They will also need to show that the deception harmed them financially.
