For many would-be students, college is still out of reach. For these students, a for-profit university may seem like the only and best way to pursue higher education. However, some of these schools are predatory institutions that seek to take federal aid from low income students, and since the deregulation of the Trump administration, the problem has only gotten worse.
The predatory nature of these schools works like this: a student attends with the help of the FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, but the schools are not equipped to provide students with the education needed to become employed in their fields of study. When the students default on their loans, American taxpayers are left with the debt.
On June 28, 2019, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos repealed regulations on for-profit colleges called the gainful employment rule. This rule required them to prove their programs helped students become gainfully employed or lose access to federal aid. The repeal came into effect in July 2020. That means that from this month forward, for-profit colleges in the US have zero requirements to make sure their students can be gainfully employed to continue taking money from the FAFSA.
Written by Andrew Tyrell-Smith
Media by Ben Hyland
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