Despite Court Rulings, DeVos Leaves Obama-Era Rules Unenforced

Posted April 30, 2019
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Published by the Wall Street Journal

Several court rulings have preserved Obama-era rules that the agency has tried to scale back, including a crackdown on the for-profit college industry and a mandate regarding civil rights in special education. But the Education Department hasn’t moved to enforce the regulations, achieving the same effect.

“We feel students should be treated as individuals and not as statistics or groups,” Mrs. Devos said at a House Education Committee hearing on Wednesday, in response to a question about when her agency would move on the special-education decree. The sentiment captures Mrs. DeVos’s feelings about many Obama-administration policies: that they painted students, or entire categories of schools, with a broad brush.

The lack of action has left students, schools and states in limbo, with borrowers waiting on loans that federal rules say should be erased and states unsure how to implement civil-rights policies that, if left unaddressed, could land them in court.

In March, a federal court in Washington said the Education Department must follow an Obama administration policy that aimed to reduce the high proportion of black and Hispanic students in special-education classes. At the House Education Committee hearing on Wednesday, Mrs. DeVos said her agency is still reviewing the court’s decision and “moving toward implementation.”

“In our opinion, the court’s order is in effect, and the department can’t pretend that nothing has changed when it in fact has,” said Selene Almazan, legal director of the Counsel of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, which filed the suit against the rule’s delay.

borrower defense to repayment, that qualifies students to have their loans erased if their schools had defrauded them. Mrs. DeVos argued, in an attempt to delay the rule’s implementation, that it was too costly to the government and placed an excessive financial burden on the schools accused of defrauding students.

The rule took effect in October after a court ruled that Mrs. DeVos improperly tried to delay it.

 

The rule doesn’t specify a certain timeline for the claims to be addressed, but advocates say students are being left in limbo.

For Tasha Rincon, a 37-year-old mother in San Jacinto, Calif., who filed a borrower defense claim against Everest College in 2012, the lack of action has meant her initial $35,000 in loans has swelled to $55,000.

Everest shut in 2015 along with the collapse of its parent company, Corinthian Colleges.