Stop Betsy DeVos’ attack on scammed students

Time and again, Betsy DeVos has shown just how determined she is to help her friends who run predatory for-profit colleges, no matter the cost to the students she is supposed to protect. Last year was no exception, as the Department of Education released a new regulation that would further hurt students already defrauded by for-profit colleges.

The decades-old “borrower defense to repayment” rule is meant to cancel the student loans of student borrowers who have been defrauded by their colleges. The Obama administration updated and formalized this process in a 2016 rule. But when DeVos became secretary of education, she set out to undo it. And that’s not all: she is currently being held in contempt of court for continuing to collect on the debt of students whose debts are supposed to have been cancelled already.

Instead of supporting students, DeVos has attacked defrauded borrowers, limiting their loan forgiveness by millions of dollars, and allowing schools to use the forced arbitration “ripoff clause” in their contracts, which bars them from having their day in court if their school breaks the law. For many affected students—so many of whom are veterans, first-generation college students, and people of color—it’s a double whammy: not only are their finances and careers wrecked by having worthless degrees, they have no way to seek justice because DeVos has changed the rules to stack the deck against them.

DeVos’ rewrite puts the burden of proof on individual borrowers,, a tactic meant to make it harder for borrowers to win their money back even when they have been ripped off, and to stop people fighting back together. DeVos’ version of the rule would force hundreds of thousands of students defrauded by for-profit colleges to suffer yet another injustice. But Congress could stop her! Congress is poised to vote on whether the DeVos rule should be repealed. It’s time for Congress to stand up for students and reject Betsy DeVos’ gifts to abusive for profit schools at the expense of students. Tell your lawmakers to vote to repeal the DeVos borrower defense rule, by supporting H.J.Res. 76 and S.J.Res. 56.