Josh Stein, the NC attorney general, joined a lawsuit with 18 other states and the District of Columbia against US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her decision last month to freeze student loan protections.
N. C. Attorney General Josh Stein says a lawsuit he joined Thursday could help students who attended fraudulent, for-profit colleges ease their federal student-loan debt.
Stein joined other attorneys general from around the country to sue U. S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who moved last month to freeze rules that aimed to erase the federal loan debt of students cheated by predatory for-profit colleges.
The attorneys general, all Democrats, from 18 states and the District of Columbia accuse the education secretary of breaking federal law and giving private for-profit schools free rein by rescinding the Borrower Defense rule that was to go into effect on the first of this month. They filed the lawsuit Thursday in federal court in the District of Columbia.
The rule was adopted late last year before former President Barack Obama left office. It was created to protect student borrowers by making it easier for students at colleges found to be fraudulent to have their federal loans forgiven.
The rule was created after nearly two years of negotiations, following the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, a national for-profit chain which enrolled thousands of North Carolina students, Stein pointed out.
But last month, DeVos said the education department wanted to re-evaluate the rule, calling it a “muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools.” The rollback came after a lawsuit was filed in federal court by an association of for-profit colleges in California seeking to block the rule.
The attorneys general who filed the lawsuit this week are from California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
“The delayed rules are deeply troubling, ” Stein said in a statement. “Students who borrow money for their education are taking a risk to improve their lives – and they must be protected from those who take advantage of vulnerable student borrowers. Delaying these rules that protect students is irresponsible and reckless.”
Stein said the federal education department abandoned the notice and public comment process required under federal law to change such rules and highlighted some of the protections included in the Obama adminstration rule.
The rule would have required schools at risk of closing to put up financial collateral. It also banned mandatory arbitration agreements, which prevented many students from suing schools they believed to have defrauded them.
The National Education Association praised the attorneys general for bringing a lawsuit.
“It is simply wrong that the Department of Education would want to do away with regulations that would protect students, ” the organization’s president Lily Eskelsen Garcia said in a statement. “It is no surprise that these regulations have been strongly opposed by for-profit schools, which have saddled students with crushing debts for college degrees. If that weren’ t enough of a burden, some of the degrees provided by these for-profit institutions have failed to prepare students with a viable pathway to getting a good job and are often not even worth the paper on which they’ re printed.”
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