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UPDATE: Department of Education Halts Rule to Monitor For-Profit Colleges; Lobbyist (FORCED OUT) Gains Influence
The battle to stop the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as the Department of Education Secretary was lost and with that comes consequences. For the most part, it's too early to gain visibility in the changes being put into motion. However, Taylor Hansen, former lobbyist for the largest group of for-profit college and recently Trump-appointed official with the Department of Education, has already achieved one of his goals.
Until June 2016, Taylor Hansen lobbied for the largest trade group of for-profit colleges. At the forefront of its agenda: eliminating a rule known as “gainful employment,” which can take away federal funding from for-profit colleges if their graduates fail to earn enough to repay student loans.
Last week, that goal started to become a reality. The U.S. Department of Education delayed the deadline for colleges to comply with certain provisions of gainful employment, saying it plans to review the rule.
By then, Hansen was watching from the inside, benefiting from the Trump administration’s ethics policies that allow former lobbyists to work for agencies they have recently tried to influence.
For-profit schools have a long and documented history of saddling students with significant tuition (nearly 5x the cost of public options) for substandard education and false promises of opportunities for graduates. Federal funding pours into these "institutions," often in the form of Pell Grants and subsidized loans for younger citizens seeking to better themselves. Creating a healthy system of higher education options through accountability is an objective that could benefit our country for decades to come. The Trump administration's version of capitalism and education has no room for such concerns.
Both Trump and his education secretary are familiar with for-profit colleges. Trump owned a for-profit education company, and paid $25 million last November to settleTrump University students’ allegations of high-pressure sales tactics and unqualified instructors. His education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has been a champion of privately run schools and has invested in at least one company with for-profit college holdings.
The separate overarching issue of former highly paid lobbyists now running government departments they lobbied and making the rules on behalf of their former bosses is one that will dominate the Trump term and should alarm and infuriate every citizen.
Under Obama administration policies, which banned lobbyists from joining any agency they had recently lobbied, Hansen would have been ineligible to work for the Education Department.....the rules helped prevent conflicts of interest.
During his campaign, Trump promised he would “drain the swamp” and suggested that he was open to banning lobbyists from working in his administration. Shortly after his inauguration, however, Trump signed an ethics order that weakened the rules put in place during the previous administration..... As ProPublica has previously reported, dozens of the administration’s new hires have formerly worked as lobbyists and industry consultants, some of them within the past year.
UPDATE: Former lobbyist Taylor Hansen resigned three days after the ProPublica reported his hiring. Thank you ProPublica, Senator Elizabeth Warren and all those who called their representatives.
A former lobbyist for an association of for-profit colleges resigned last Friday from the Department of Education, where he had worked for about a month.
Sources: https://www.propublica.org/article/for-profit-colleges-gain-beachhead-in-trump-administration
Important additional reading about for-profit education: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewjosuweit/2017/02/28/for-profit-schools-can-cost-466-per-credit/#248c05e6e769