DeLauro Statement on Department of Education’s Final Gainful Employment Rule

Today, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) released a statement in response to the Biden Administration’s Education Department releasing a final rule on gainful employment, which will help protect students from predatory for-profit colleges.

“I applaud the Biden administration for reinstating a strong gainful employment (GE) rule, which will protect student borrowers from low-quality, high-cost degree programs at predatory for-profit colleges. Though for-profit colleges enroll only 10 percent of students, their scam programs are responsible for half of all student loan defaults. When this final rule goes into effect, I look forward to working with the Department of Education to make sure its strong provisions are rigorously enforced.

“While these rules will meaningfully curb some of the most egregious abuses we witnessed in higher education over the past two decades, the Department of Education must urgently address the loose regulation and nonexistent oversight over a similar, newer phenomenon—the proliferation of for-profit online program management (OPM) companies across our higher education landscape. Just like predatory for-profit colleges, these OPMs mislead students, drive up costs and leave student borrowers with a low-value education, excessive debt and low-paying jobs after graduation. For-profit OPMs are the new predators in higher education, and it is now time for the Department to take urgent action that curbs their abusive practices and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars.”