The Obama administration on Friday set the stage for a new round in the years-long fight over its controversial gainful employment rule, with the formal release of a new proposalthat comes some 20 months after a federal judge blocked key parts of the original version.
The proposal seeks to cut off federal financial aid to career-oriented programs whose graduates have high student-loan debt relative to their incomes.
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, the main trade group representing for-profit colleges, has waged a bitter fight against the rule and sued the department in federal court in a bid to block the initial measure. A judge in 2012 vacated portions of the original rule but ruled that the Education Department still had the authority to issue the regulations.
The department last year convened a panel of negotiators to help shape a new rule, but those talks ended in deadlock, leaving the department to write the new version itself.
The new proposal is unlikely to cool the debate over the department’s efforts on gainful employment.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/reactions-to-the-education-dept-s-new-gainful-employment-proposal/74305