Sen. Warren, Rep. Clark Argue That DeVos "Failed as Education Secretary" in First Year
By Joelle Fredman, NASFAA Staff Reporter
Democratic lawmakers from Massachusetts, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Katherine Clark, released a report last week outlining the ways in which they believe Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has failed students in her first year at the Department of Education (ED).
In their report, "DeVos Watch, Year One: Failing America's Students," the lawmakers claim that DeVos favored for-profit colleges over students by eliminating and delaying regulations aimed at protecting students from fraud, harmed students by hiring personnel with clear conflicts of interest, and left vulnerable populations of learners such as transgender students without safeguards, among other issues.
"Secretary DeVos's first year as Secretary of Education has revealed that she is either unable or unwilling to fulfill the Department's mission of ‘promot[ing] student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access,'” the lawmakers wrote.
Warren and Clark were especially troubled by DeVos' decision to delay rulings on borrower defense to repayment claims as well as rewrite the regulation along with that of gainful employment (GE).
"During her nomination hearing, Secretary DeVos repeatedly emphasized the importance of ‘accountability.' Since her confirmation, however, she has taken numerous steps to limit, delay, and revoke regulations aimed at holding colleges accountable when they fail to keep their promises and protecting defrauded student loan borrowers,” they wrote.
While ED processed 28,000 claims before the end of January 2017, it did not grant relief to any borrowers in the six months following DeVos' confirmation, "causing significant stress and hardship for borrowers.” Additionally, Warren and Clark argue that DeVos took another step to withhold relief from those defrauded by their institutions when in December she announced a new "tiered” system for processing 21,500 pending borrower defense claims, which would reward borrowers partial relief by comparing their earnings to those from passing GE programs.
The authors criticized DeVos for suspending borrower defense regulations until July 2019 and convening a negotiated rulemaking session to rewrite the rules, where she "stacked the deck, doubling the number of individuals representing for-profit colleges and replacing representatives of constituency groups, such as ‘general counsel/attorneys and compliance officers,' with representatives of the for-profit education sector.”
"With the rulemaking committee firmly tilted towards for-profit colleges, Secretary DeVos announced a proposal to increase the burden of proof necessary for students to have their loans discharged in January 2018. ...With this latest proposal, Secretary DeVos made clear that her priority is protecting predatory colleges rather than the defrauded students saddled with debt and a useless education,” the lawmakers wrote.
Warren and Clark also faulted DeVos for presenting rulemakers at the most recent negotiated rulemaking session to rewrite gainful employment regulations with proposals to relax sanctions for institutions that fail to meet set thresholds and strike the reporting requirement for schools.
Additionally, the lawmakers argued that DeVos harmed students cheated by their institutions when ED terminated its partnership with the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has helped students to acquire millions of dollars in relief and is in the midst of a lawsuit against student loan servicer Navient for alleged fraud. After ED ended the partnership, Navient's stock prices went up, which the lawmakers argue "was a boon for the student loan company.”
The authors also claimed that DeVos allowed for for-profit colleges to "escape accountability” by allowing institutions to gain nonprofit status without ED oversight, as well as overturning decisions by the Obama administration to block the sale of for-profit schools to organizations that sought to turn them into nonprofits, which worried the previous administration as more institutions sought for-profit status to curtail regulations.
The authors further criticized DeVos for siding with federal loan servicer, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), which manages Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) borrower accounts, after a Massachusetts attorney general said it "undermined” the program and caused borrowers to lose their benefits. The decision suggested that when it comes to policing federal loan servicers, federal law preempts state law.
Warren and Clark also took issue with DeVos' hiring of top aids with ties to for-profit schools, such as Senior Counselor to the Secretary Robert Eitel, the former vice president for regulatory legal services at for-profit college operator Bridgepoint Education, which was subject to various lawsuits for deceiving students.
In addition to favoring for-profit schools, the lawmakers faulted Devos for reversing several decisions that addressed sexual harassment, limiting rights for LGBTQ+ students and students of color, and revoking authority from ED's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Publication Date: 3/5/2018
David S | 3/5/2018 9:14:44 AM
Hard cosign.
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