DeVos Presses Pause on Burdensome Gainful Employment Regulations

Continuing to deliver on her promise of a regulatory reset at the Department of Education, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced today the Department will allow additional time for institutions to comply with overly burdensome Gainful Employment regulations.

“Since their creation under the previous administration, Gainful Employment regulations have been repeatedly challenged by educational institutions and overturned by the courts, underscoring the need for a regulatory reset,” said Secretary DeVos. “We need to get this right for our students, and we need to get this right for our institutions of higher education. Once fully implemented, the current rules would unfairly and arbitrarily limit students’ ability to pursue certain types of higher education and career training programs. We need to expand, not limit, paths to higher education for students, while also continuing to hold accountable those institutions that do not serve students well.”

The Department will now give higher education institutions until July 1, 2018, to comply with disclosure requirements originally due on July 1, 2017, regarding the distribution of gainful employment data to students and in promotional materials. The Department is also extending the deadline for programs to file alternate earnings appeals in light of the Court Order in American Association of Cosmetology Schools v. DeVos. A Federal Register notice will be issued within the next 30 days to specifically implement the Court Order and will include information on establishing a new deadline for earnings appeals.

On June 14, 2017, the Department announced it would engage in negotiated rulemaking on Gainful Employment to develop new regulations that would better serve students and enable institutions to provide high-quality programs.

You can read the full notice on the Federal Register here.