Tiny satellites can track North Korean missiles
Education chief froze rules erasing debt in fraud cases.
Satellite imagery could be used to find launch sites and nuclear facilities and to help destroy them if a conflict seems imminent.
Democratic attorneys general from 18 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Education Department and its secretary, Betsy DeVos, challenging the department’s move last month to freeze new rules for erasing the federal loan debt of student borrowers who were cheated by colleges that acted fraudulently.
The rules, known as borrower defense, were finalized in October by the Obama administration after years of negotiation and review, and they had been scheduled to take effect July 1.
But after President Donald Trump took office, DeVos paused the planned changes, citing a federal lawsuit filed in May by an association of for-profit colleges in California that is seeking to block the rules.
DeVos also criticized the rules, calling them “a muddled process that’s unfair to students and schools,” and she said she would establish a new rule-making committee to reconsider the matter from scratch.
In their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the states called the agency’s rationale for the delay a “mere pretext” for repealing and replacing rules that had already been finalized. The states are seeking to have the rules restored.
“Since day one, Secretary DeVos has sided with for-profit school executives against students and families drowning in unaffordable student loans,” said Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general who led the multistate coalition. “Her decision to cancel vital protections for students and taxpayers is a betrayal of her office’s responsibility and a violation of federal law.”
A spokeswoman for the Education Department declined to comment.
Also Thursday, two student borrowers sued the Education Department in the same federal court over the delayed rules. The students both attended the New England Institute of Art in Brookline, Mass, a for-profit school that stopped enrolling new students in 2015.
Its parent company, Education Management Corp., agreed that year to pay $95 million to settle a government lawsuit charging the company with making illegal payments to recruiters.
The Obama administration’s push to streamline and expand the borrower defense process came after hundreds of for-profit colleges were accused of widespread fraud and collapsed, leaving their enrolled students with huge debts and no degrees.
The failure of two mammoth chains, Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, gave the issue added urgency.
An existing federal law allows borrowers to apply for loan forgiveness if they attended a school that misled them or broke state consumer protection laws. Once rarely used, the system was overwhelmed by applicants after the wave of for-profit failures.