Page 8 - CLT072020

8 ¦ JULY 20, 2020 NEWS

Tong Joins 22 AGs Suing Secretary DeVos
Over Repeal of Student-Borrower Protections

By Michael Marciano and Jason Grant

Arguing it’s a “gross injustice” for the Trump
administration to repeal an Obama-era rule
giving student borrowers a robust defense
to repaying loans owed to “predatory” for-profit
schools, state Attorney General William Tong on
Wednesday joined 22 other state attorneys general
in suing to stop the repeal.
Instead of protecting students, Tong said in a
statement, DeVos’s “borrower defense” regulations
give predatory schools “a green light” to defraud stu-
dents. He added that DeVos’s own department has
acknowledged only 4 percent of students eligible for
relief will ever get it under her rules.
“In pushing these shameful rules, the U.S. De-
partment of Education ignored federal procedure Connecticut Attorney General William Tong.
and Congressional intent,” Tong said. “We are ask- Photo by Michael Marciano.

ing the court to protect students and our public violations of applicable state consumer protection
investment in their education by blocking this un- law as a viable defense to repayment of federal stu-
lawful action.” dent loans,” the complaint states.
Tong and fellow AGs from across the coun- The lawsuit, which names DeVos and the edu-
try noted their July 15 complaint that The Higher cation department as defendants, was lodged
Education Act requires the education secretary to Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the North-
set regulations that allow students to obtain re- ern District of California by a coalition being led
lief from federal student loans when schools have by attorneys general from Massachusetts and Cali-
engaged in misconduct. The DOE issued new bor- fornia. All 23 of the states that are plaintiffs in the
rower defense regulations to do this in November, lawsuit are led by Democratic governors.
2016 following the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, The education department could not be reached
a for-profit chain that defrauded tens of thousands for comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.
of students. The coalition’s complaint further says that the 2019
The 56-page federal lawsuit states DeVos’s 2019 replacement regulations “eliminated all available
repeal and replacement of the rule “drastically” defenses [for for-profit school student borrowers],
limits repayment defenses for borrowers who find except just one: ‘a misrepresentation … of material
themselves saddled with large amounts of debt after fact [by an institution] upon which the borrower
a for-profit school has acted unfairly or deceptively reasonably relied in deciding to obtain’ a federal stu-
in getting the student to enroll or attend the institu- dent loan.”
tion. And “even after drastically limiting available de-
DeVos’ new regulations replaced the Obama ad- fenses” for student borrowers who have been misled
ministration’s “Borrower Defense to Repayment” or deceived by a for-profit institution, the complaint
rule, and “for the first time completely eliminated argues, DeVos’ education department also “imposed

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