Updated: June 2018

State of Maryland v. Department of Education

In 2014, the Department of Education adopted the Gainful Employment Rule to address overwhelming evidence that some career training programs, particularly at for-profit institutions, were failing to prepare students for jobs that would enable them to repay their federal student debt, thus endangering the federal government’s investment and leaving some students worse off than they would have been had they never pursued postsecondary education. The rule imposes, as a condition of continued receipt of Title IV student aid funding, new accountability and disclosure requirements for career training programs. However, the Department under Secretary Betsy DeVos has initiated a new negotiated rulemaking to reexamine the Gainful Employment Rule and, in the interim, has set about to undermine the rule by suspending key portions of its disclosure requirements and effectively gutting the rule’s accountability mechanism. State attorneys general brought suit against the Department to compel the agency to implement the rule as written. To support them as amici, we are filing this brief in the federal district court for the District of Columbia.

The amici are The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS), American Federation of Teachers, Center for Public Interest Law, Center for Responsible Lending, Children's Advocacy Institute, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of California, DEMOS, Mississippi Center for Justice, Public Citizen, Inc., Public Counsel, Public Good Law Center, Public Law Center, Unidosus, Veterans Education Success, Veterans' Student Loan Relief Fund, and Young Invincibles.

Click here to review the brief.