Putting Profits Over Students

John B. King Jr., Ed Trust President and CEO and former U.S. Secretary of Education, teamed up with fellow former secretary of education under the Obama administration, Arne Duncan, now managing partner for The Emerson Collective, on an opinion piece for The Hill. The piece examines the Trump administration’s recent decision to roll back and revise the borrower defense and gainful employment regulations.

These postsecondary education regulations, designed to protect Americans from predatory higher education institutions that leave students with insurmountable debt and bleak job prospects, are starting to show evidence of their effectiveness, and many students who had been defrauded by their college programs are beginning to receive debt relief.

Despite the gainful employment regulations’ initial success and widespread support for borrower defense — nearly 80 percent of Americans say they are in favor of loan relief for student borrowers deceived by their institutions — the Trump administration has remained steadfast in its conviction to eliminate them. This move, King and Duncan note, “amounts to nothing more than a giveaway to programs and schools where the bottom line rarely includes what’s best for students.”

Read the entire article here.

Photo credit: 401kcalculator.org