Student Defense applauds finalized Gainful Employment rule, urges Department of Education to swiftly implement critical student protections
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 27, 2023
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Student Defense applauds finalized Gainful Employment rule, urges Department of Education to swiftly implement critical student protections
The U.S. Department of Education today released its finalized Gainful Employment rule, which aims to prevent schools from overcharging students who enroll in career and for-profit programs. In response, Student Defense President Aaron Ament released the following statement:
“The finalized Gainful Employment rule is a major step towards enacting more front-end protections to ensure students aren’t being taken advantage of by predatory schools and programs. We’re glad to see a high school earnings benchmark included in the final rule, which we supported during the negotiated rulemaking process. We’re eager to see this rule move towards final implementation and urge the Department of Education to enact these regulations as quickly as possible.”
Background Information:
The Gainful Employment rule provides a mechanism for the Department of Education to evaluate the cost of certain for-profit and career college programs to ensure schools are not overcharging students. The rule originated in 2014 under the Obama administration and was repealed by the Trump administration in 2019. In January 2020, Student Defense filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education in an effort to have the 2014 rule reinstated. The Department has continued to defend the Trump administration’s repeal of this regulation.
In January 2022, the Postsecondary Equity & Economics Research (PEER) Project published a study by Stephanie Cellini and Kathryn Blanchard which the Department used as support for the Earnings Premium Metric in the final Gainful Employment rule. The research found that the high school earnings benchmark would reduce the risk of students taking on unnecessary student debt, particularly at for-profit institutions that have historically fallen short of meeting gainful employment metrics
The PEER Project is a joint initiative on higher education accountability between attorneys at Student Defense and economists at George Washington University and Columbia University.