Civil and Human Rights Coalition Responds to Proposed Regulations on For-Profit Colleges

WASHINGTON – Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, released the following statement after the Department of Education proposed “gainful employment” regulations on career education programs, including for-profit colleges. These regulations would also impact career education programs at traditional two and four year colleges but not entire the institutions:

“Today’s release of proposed gainful employment standards is an important and necessary step for protecting students and taxpayers from being ripped off by unscrupulous career education programs, including those for-profit colleges that are more focused on revenues than providing the level of education that their marketing brochures and recruiters promise.

The Leadership Conference is pleased the standards would require covered programs to fully disclose costs, debt levels, and employment outcomes, and would require the programs to meet accreditation as well as professional licensing requirements. 

While these standards are not the full solution that civil rights, student, women’s, labor, and consumer organizations are asking for, they send a strong message to many for-profit career education programs to start putting students first.

For-profit colleges are responsible for close to half of all loan defaults and 31 percent of all student loans, but only about 13 percent of the total student population. Greater regulation is urgently needed to hold these institutions accountable given the rising tide of debt and default rates faced by students enrolled in for-profit programs – a majority of whom are women, minorities, low-income individuals, veterans, and service members.

The Leadership Conference will be filing comments on the new standards, urging the Secretary to strengthen the regulation to adequately protect students and their families.

Widespread disinvestment in public education has created an environment where predatory for-profit schools can thrive. The federal government, states, localities, and employers must step up and dramatically expand and improve the quality of low-cost career-education programs offered at community colleges and through employer-labor apprenticeship programs.

Greater regulation is needed, but we welcome this as another step toward accountability for this industry.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.