Tell Betsy DeVos: Hold Schools Accountable for High Debt Loads and Worthless Degrees

The Department of Education wants your opinion!

 

The Department of Education wants your opinion! The “gainful employment” rule is supposed to ensure that colleges do not leave graduates with very low earnings and high debt. If career programs do not serve students well, they must improve or lose student aid eligibility. The Department is weakening this critical protection for students and your voice matters! 

 

Below the form are some tips on how to write the most effective public comment possible if you choose to write your own.

? Take future action with a single click.
Log in or  Sign up for FastAction

  1. Details
  2. Messages
  3. Confirmation
Your info:
Additional Information

 

Here are some tips on how to write the most effective public comment possible.

  • Be specific: Why did you go to school? How large is your student loan? Did the college provide you a good education for the price you paid? Did you take out private student loans? Do you earn enough money to repay your student loans?
  • Talk about how your experience affected you: Comments are stronger if they describe in detail the harm that you experienced. Beyond how much debt you owe, or how your job prospects don't match what you were promised, think about things like lost income, career opportunities passed up, and sacrifices you and your family made.

Talk about these harmful changes that the Education Department (ED) is proposing.

  • Do you think that programs should be allowed to get federal money even when  graduates consistently have a lot of debt and very low earnings? The current rule would stop the flow of federal money to failing programs, but the proposed new rule would not. 
     
  • The current rule includes all student loans. ED's proposal would remove private loans from the calculation. This would make it more likely that abusive colleges would push students towards riskier private loans. Do you think schools should be able to push students toward riskier private student loans without accountability?
     
  • ED proposed removing the lowest earning graduates from their calculation. Schools are already only judged on results for graduates, instead of all students. This change would further water down of the existing standard. Do you think ED should be even more lenient with schools that routinely saddle students with debts they cannot repay? 
     
  • Do you think that schools should be able to saddle graduate students with debts they cannot repay? ED proposed excluding graduate programs from the gainful employment rule, even though graduate degrees are usually the most expensive degrees and leave students with the most debt.
     
  • Do you think it is right for schools to be able to hide key information about its programs from current and prospective students? Would you have liked to have known that a program you were thinking about enrolling in had graduates with consistently high debt and low earnings? The current rule requires low-performing schools to warn prospective students, but ED's new proposal would eliminate this requirement, potentially leaving prospective students in the dark about programs that routinely overcharge and under-deliver.