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Former for-profit college executive shaped Education Department policy to help for-profit colleges
In early February, Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Education Secretary. Two Republicans, Senators Murkowski (AK) and Collins (ME), joined the entire Democratic caucus to force an historic tie-breaking vote from Vice President Pence. Read more at this link. Her installation to a position of power over our education system means she spends every day implementing policies with destructive consequences for our country.
DeVos has hired for-profit school employees to work at OUR Department of Education and they're overturning policies that protected millions of students.
Education Department adviser Robert Eitel, hired by the Trump administration last February after four years in the for-profit college industry, played a role in suspending an Obama-era policy known as "borrower defense to repayment." The rule made it easier for students, enticed into taking out five-figure loans on promises that they would get good jobs, to file for debt relief. It also allowed the government to recoup losses due to discharged loans from the schools.
Eitel - a former vice president at two for-profit college operators, Bridgepoint Education and Career Education Corp.... For two months he worked at the Education Department while on unpaid leave from Bridgepoint....
Yes, you read that right. Eitel was hired straight out of the for-profit college sector into a senior education position and is now being paid by taxpayers to dismantle regulations designed to protect students defrauded by for-profit colleges. THIS IS THE SWAMP.
Eitel...isn't the only for-profit college executive DeVos has brought into the Department. T he secretary also drew ire when she tapped Julian Schmoke, Jr., a former dean at the for-profit college DeVry, to lead the department's Student Aid Enforcement Unit last August.
Smart Dissent discussed Schmoke in September 2017 HERE and HERE.
Please keep in mind who this impacts: young people DeVos refuses to interact with:
....those most impacted include many predominantly low-income, and minority students disproportionately represented at for-profit colleges and often saddled with high student loans and facing poor job prospects.
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