Here are comments I made today at a Department of Education hearing seeking comments from the public on a new rule-making process announced by the Department.

The Trump administration has pursued a well-publicized effort it says is fighting waste, fraud, and abuse. I hope you know that some of the worst waste, fraud, and abuse over decades has involved predatory colleges. For-profit schools have received hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars, yet many have engaged in blatant deceptions, and offered high-priced, low quality programs that leave students worse off than when they started. 

Part of the problem has been weak regulations that don’t include adequate performance standards.  And part has been the failure of the Department and other agencies to enforce even those weak rules.

So far, the Trump administration has made things much worse, weakening your capacity to protect students and taxpayers.

You have gutted this Department, with an announced intent to abolish it, and particularly have weakened oversight and enforcement efforts.

Without proper process, you weakened the 90-10 rule in a way that makes it easier for for-profit schools to evade that measure of quality.

You improperly postponed the next meeting of NACIQI, the advisory panel reviewing accreditors, and improperly deposed the respected NACIQI chair.

When Secretary McMahon finally announced, in May, an initiative to fight waste, fraud, and abuse in student aid, it turned out she was accusing students, not schools, of fraud.

And you took an enforcement matter that was done – a well-documented case of blatant deceptive conduct at Grand Canyon University, the largest recipient of federal student aid – and cancelled an entirely warranted $37 million fine. The Department repeated Grand Canyon’s false claim that the enforcement was persecution of a Christian school. Did you note that many of the students victimized by Grand Canyon are themselves Christians?

Taxpayers shouldn’t fund schools that consistently wreck students’ financial futures.  You need strong rules to separate good programs from bad ones, and you need to say no when schools and their lawyers and lobbyists try to undermine the rules. 

Now, you need rules for short-term Pell that avoid cynical abuses and bad outcomes.  You need a strong gainful employment rule that provides serious performance standards and strong implementation of the new law cutting off loans to programs that yield low earnings. You should rescind your improper revision of the 90-10 rule. And you need a serious negreg committee, including genuine advocates for students. 

Yes, please fight against waste, fraud, and abuse in education. That means you must stop aiding predatory colleges that rip off taxpayers and ruin students’ lives.