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Published: April 2011

Amendment would eliminate protections for students in college career education programs

Coalition: Student loan reform

A letter to the Honorable Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, Consumer Action joined in asking him to oppose an amendment that would seek to weaken regulation over career education programs at colleges.

Below is the full text of the letter:

Thank you for your leadership in making college affordable for more students, especially low- income students. Your past efforts to increase the maximum Pell grant amount, strengthen the federal student loan program, and enhance educational opportunities for members of the military and veterans have gone a long way to ensuring access to post-secondary education for all students. These steps are essential to reach the President’s goal of having the highest college graduation rate in the world by 2020.

But, we do nothing for students or our nation if we just guarantee access to debt without a serious opportunity for college completion. The Department of Education’s proposed gainful employment regulation recognizes that some current career education programs are so toxic that they doom students to a lifetime of debt burden and waste millions of precious taxpayer dollars.

The Kline-Foxx amendment to H.R. 1 would prohibit the Department of Education from doing the minimum needed to protect students and taxpayers from the most toxic choices and would allow the continued flow of federal dollars into programs that have been, at best, ineffective and, at worst, routinely leaving students much worse off than when they enrolled. Specifically, the amendment would eliminate funding to:

• Enforce existing regulations that ensure students receive the kind of basic consumer information they need to make an informed choice about a career education program; and
• Finalize or implement any gainful employment regulation to protect students and taxpayers from wasteful career education programs at any type of college.

We urge you not to agree to the Kline-Foxx amendment as a rider as you negotiate a fiscal year 2011 continuing funding resolution. The absence of regulation in the gainful employment area has left the most vulnerable students unprotected from unethical career education programs and has bilked taxpayers out of millions of precious dollars in Pell Grants and Stafford Loans. We must stop such abuses. The Department should be allowed to both finalize and enforce these critical regulations without delay.

Lead Organization

The Institute for College Access and Success

More Information

AFL-CIO | American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers | American Association of University Professors | American Association of University Women | American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299 | American Federation of Teachers | Americans for Financial Reform | Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance | Campaign for College Affordability | Campus Progress | Center for Law and Social Policy | Children’s Defense Fund | The Coalition of Labor Union Women | Council for Opportunity in Education | Dēmos: A Network for Ideas and Action | The Education Trust | GLSEN | The Greenlining Institute | The Institute for College Access & Success and its Project on Student Debt | Labor Council for Latin American Advancement | The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights | League of United Latin American Citizens | Legal Momentum (formerly the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund) | National Association for Bilingual Education | National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients) | National Council of La Raza | National Education Association | National Organization for Women | Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project | Pride at Work | Public Advocates Inc. | Public Citizen | Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts | United States Hispanic Leadership Institute | U.S. PIRG | United States Student Association | VetJobs | Young Invincibles

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