Washington, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld a district court’s ruling on the U.S. Department of Education’s gainful employment rule. Ben Miller, Senior Director for Postsecondary Education at the Center for American Progress, released the following statement:
Students and taxpayers deserve to know that billions in federal dollars are supporting career training programs that are high quality. The Department of Education’s gainful employment rule is designed to strike a middle ground by protecting access to higher education, shielding students from inferior programs, and creating incentives for colleges to improve their programs. The D.C. Circuit’s ruling speaks volumes: “It would be a perverse system that, by design, wasted taxpayer money in order to impose crippling, credit-destroying debt on lower-income students and graduates.” In order to continue receiving federal funds, trade programs should be required, at bare minimum, to demonstrate how they are providing students with certificates or degrees that will lead to gainful employment.
Rather than continuing to fight such regulations in court, for-profit colleges—and the trade groups that represent them—should focus more intently on providing a quality education for the hundreds of thousands of students enrolled in their programs.
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Allison Preiss at [email protected] or 202.478.6331.