For Immediate Release:                                                                       

Contact: Carrie Wofford, (202) 838-5050

August 10, 2018

Education Department failed to consider veterans’ perspectives in gutting the Gainful Employment rule, which imposed accountability on the lowest-performing schools that left students with worthless degrees, crushing loan debt

 WASHINGTON, DC — As part of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s ongoing rollback of policies that protect student veterans from predatory for-profit colleges, Secretary DeVos today gutted the Gainful Employment rule — a rule that gives the lowest-performing career education colleges a three-year warning and then, if they don’t improve, strips them of federal funding for consistently leaving students with worthless degrees and student loan debts they cannot repay.

“Betsy DeVos’s ruling today is a big gift to the lowest quality bad actor college programs that are notorious for deceiving veterans out of their hard-earned GI Bill,” said Carrie Wofford, president of Veterans Education Success.

“We are gravely disappointed that Betsy DeVos and the former for-profit college executives surrounding her in leadership positions at the Education Department failed to listen to any of the testimony they received from national veterans’ organizations or from recommendations that received 100% support at the Department’s Negotiated Rulemaking process earlier this year,” Wofford said.

Thirty four of the nation’s largest veterans and military service organizations wrote several letters urging the Department not to weaken the Gainful Employment rule, because servicemembers, veterans, and their families and survivors are often targeted by the lowest- performing colleges that want their GI Bill. Also see The American Legion’s Resolution.^[1][2]

The Education Department’s decision today goes contrary to veterans’ recommendation, and benefits only bad-actor schools at the expense of those who are serving or have served our country.