GAO: Bush-era rules helped schools evade banned practices
Bush-era rules defanging the Education Department have helped for-profit schools evade a federal ban on some recruitment and lending practices, according to a new government report.
The issue has gained wide attention in recent months as Education officials have proposed new restrictions on for-profit schools designed to ensure that their students can pay back the billions of dollars in federal loans they take out each year. Nearly one-third of for-profit schools specialize in training healthcare professionals.
Bolstering the administration’s case, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report Thursday indicating that 2002 rules scaling back the Department of Education’s enforcement policies have made it more difficult for the agency to punish those violating a ban on incentive payments to recruiters and loan officers.
The eight-year-old rules, GAO wrote, led to “an increased burden on Education to prove a violation and lessened associated financial penalties (fines and settlement payments).”