Giving Compass' Take:

• Obama's Education Department took significant steps to protect students and taxpayers from fraud by for-profit colleges, which Betsey DeVos has walked back.

• How can philanthropists help to ensure that students are not taken advantage of? 

• Find out why we need student-level data on higher education outcomes.

An investigation that found that Corinthian schools had misled prospective students about the job-placement rates of their schools’ graduates, making it seem as though their graduates had a much better record of success in securing employment in their fields of study than they actually did.

In response to this and other incidents, the Obama Administration’s Education Department took several steps to crack down on for-profit colleges. The department issued a rule, known as the “gainful employment” regulation, that required institutions to meet minimal thresholds in student outcomes or risk losing federal student aid. The department also issued a regulation known as “borrower defense to repayment,” which made it easier for students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges to file for debt relief. And the department created an enforcement unit to investigate allegations of illegal activity by postsecondary institutions and take action when warranted.

The Education Department, under Betsy DeVos, halted the gainful employment regulation and proposed a new rule in its stead that would eliminate any sanctions. The Department also suspended the borrower defense rule. And, according to The New York Times, the department has sharply cut back the staff and mission of the enforcement unit.

The consequences of the about-face on regulation and oversight are serious, both for taxpayers and for students. Taxpayers have a right to know that their tax dollars are being used in the ways they were intended. Billions of dollars in grants and loans go to for-profit colleges.

But students are the ones who might be affected the most. The majority of students at for-profit colleges are students of color, and 64 percent receive Pell Grants, which are awarded to low-income students. If they are lured by false promises of high-paying jobs, they will end up with large debts and inadequate skills.

Read the full article about DeVos’ policy shift on for-profit colleges by Robert Rothman at The Hechinger Report.