In Short

Multi-Billionaire DeVos Couldn’t Care Less about Defrauded Students

Education Secretary Makes Ridiculous and Insulting Comments about Borrower Defense

DeVos at Podium 2
Gage Skidmore / CC2.0

This should not come as any surprise but it’s clear that Education
Secretary Betsy DeVos couldn’t care less about financially-distressed student loan
borrowers who were defrauded by unscrupulous for-profit college students.  As reported by Politico today, the
multi-billionaire DeVos complained that under the Obama administration’s Borrower
Defense rules, which carried out a federal law that requires the U.S.
Department of Education to discharge the loans of borrowers who were taken
advantage of by colleges, “all one had to do was raise his or her hands to be
entitled to so-called free money.” DeVos’s remarks, which couldn’t be
farther from the truth, are a slap in the face of the more-than 65,000 former for-profit students who have been waiting for years to have the Education
Department review their claims. For the real story of the Obama administration’s
cautious-to-a-fault approach to granting discharges, read my recent Washington Monthly article entitled “Borrower’s Remorse.”

More About the Authors

Stephen Burd
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Stephen Burd

Senior Writer & Editor, Higher Education

Multi-Billionaire DeVos Couldn’t Care Less about Defrauded Students