For-profit college advocates, including lobbyists who have pushed hard against any new regulations targeting for-profit schools that have employed unscrupulous student recruiting tactics, haven’t given up the legislative fight, according to the New America Foundation (NAF), a nonprofit policy group.
An organization once known as the Career College Association (CCA) sent an eMail to its members April 9 asking them to contact their Congressional representatives and urge their support for the provision to stop gainful employment rules.
“Given the fact that the for-profit higher education industry has spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to stop the Department from moving forward with this regulation, it’s hardly surprising that career college lobbyists are not conceding defeat yet,” the NAF blog said.
Many of the largest and fastest growing for-profit institutions rely on federal grant and loan money for up to 90 percent of their funding, so losing that money under gainful employment regulations would be devastating for those programs, many of which operate online.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last fall that the department would forge ahead with gainful employment rules.
Duncan’s announcement came a month after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released the results of a sting operation on for-profit institutions, showing the schools’ dishonest practices.
“Let me be clear: we’re moving forward on gainful employment regulations,” Duncan said. “While a majority of career colleges play a vital role in training our workforce to be globally competitive, some bad actors are saddling students with debt they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they cannot use.”
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