Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Friday officially repealed an Obama-era regulation that sought to crack down on for-profit colleges and universities that produced graduates with no meaningful job prospects and mountains of student debt they could not hope to repay.
The so-called gainful employment rule was issued by the Obama administration in 2014, right before huge for-profit chains collapsed, leaving students stranded with debt and worthless degrees. Under the new standards, career and certificate programs, many of which operate in the for-profit sector, would have to prove their graduates could find gainful employment to maintain access to federal financial aid. It also would have required schools to disclose in advertisements a comparison of the student debt load of their graduates and their career earnings.
In her first two years in office, Ms. DeVos has delayed critical parts of the rule, and last year, she sought to repeal it entirely, siding with for-profit industry leaders and congressional conservatives who have contended that the Obama administration unfairly targeted for-profit schools.
