AG Racine Joins Coalition Suing Department of Education Over Failure to Enforce Rule Protecting Students at For-Profit Schools

WASHINGTON D.C. – Attorney General Karl A. Racine today joined a coalition of 16 states, led by Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and Pennsylvania Attorney General Joshua Shapiro, in suing the United States Department of Education (DOE) and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for refusing to enforce the Gainful Employment Rule, a federal regulation designed to protect students from predatory for-profit schools.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the Department of Education violated federal law by refusing to enforce the Gainful Employment Rule, which implements the requirement in the Higher Education Act that all for-profit schools, all vocational schools, and non-degree programs at all other schools “prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.”

The Gainful Employment Rule has two important aspects:

  • It empowers prospective students to make informed decisions by requiring schools to provide information about the program’s average debt load, the loan repayment rate of all students who enroll in the program, the percentage of students who graduate from the program, the number of graduates who obtain employment in a field related to the program, and the average earnings of graduates.
  • It also assesses whether schools’ programs provide education and training to their students that lead to earnings that will allow students to pay back their student loan debts. If the programs fail the objective metrics, federal student loans and grants would no longer be provided to those programs.

On July 5, 2017 and August 18, 2017, DOE announced its intent to delay large portions of the Gainful Employment Rule without soliciting, receiving, or responding to any comment from any stakeholder or member of the public, and without engaging in a public deliberative process. DOE has also publicly stated that it has no plans to calculate the necessary metrics to determine whether programs are failing the Gainful Employment Rule’s minimum requirements. State attorneys general argue in their lawsuit that the delays have no legal justification and DOE’s actions are “arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion.”

Today’s complaint asks the Court to declare DOE’s delay notices unlawful and to order the agency to implement the Gainful Employment Rule.

Attorney General Racine, Attorney General Frosh and Attorney General Shapiro were joined by the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington state in filing today’s lawsuit.