Despite efforts by Congress, the Obama administration and state attorneys general to stop the predatory practices of for-profit colleges, veterans and service members who rely on funding from the GI Bill and the Defense Department to attend school are still being targeted by an industry infamous for saddling people with debt and useless degrees.
Despite efforts by Congress, the Obama administration and state attorneys general to stop the predatory practices of for-profit colleges, veterans and service members who rely on funding from the GI Bill and the Defense Department to attend school are still being targeted by an industry infamous for saddling people with debt and useless degrees.
A Senate committee report sounded a warning on this problem three years ago. State attorneys general and federal agencies at the time were investigating seven for-profit outfits with significant revenue streams from the GI Bill.
A new analysis of federal data by Veterans Education Success, a nonprofit that provides free legal services to student veterans, finds that the for-profit industry is still setting its sights on veterans and service members even as its nonmilitary enrollment has declined.
The problem lies in what is known as the 90/10 rule, created by Congress in 1998. The rule allows for-profit schools to raise 90 percent of their revenue from federal student aid and requires them to raise the remaining 10 percent from other sources. But because of an oversight in how the law was worded, schools are allowed to count some federal money — from GI education benefits and Defense Department tuition assistance — as privately raised. This has made veterans and service members a special target.
Veterans organizations that have seen servicemen and women exploited by this for-profit industry have repeatedly criticized the Education Department’s recent decision to abandon Obama-era rules that held the industry more closely accountable and made it easier for students who were cheated to erase federal loan debt.
Congress needs to stop the Education Department from dismantling rules that protect students from exploitation. It should also close the loophole in the 90/10 rule to ensure that all federal funds are counted as such. That way schools would actually have to attract private money, as the original law intended.
— New York Times
© 2017 The New York Times Company
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