President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Higher Education Act of 1965
“On a campus tour at ITT, they bragged about their job placement rates for graduates, saying that 90% of their graduates get a job right out of the gate, with average salaries starting around $60-$70,000 a year,” said Whitehead. “That was not true. The experience was nothing like what I had been promised.”
Whitehead was left with about $50,000 in student loan debt, and his testimonial is one of thousands of borrowers who have called for tighter regulations of the for-profit college industry. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) since found that ITT Tech made exaggerated claims about its graduates landing jobs.
“ITT may be closed, but I have to live with the debt and frustration that they left behind,” said Whitehead.
Greater oversight of the for-profit college sector may be underway. ED next week will begin debating a rule that could more stringently regulate for-profits. Through public sessions called negotiated rulemaking, ED negotiators will discuss several issues with stakeholders, including student loan borrower advocates and for-profit college representatives. One such issue will be a rule called Gainful Employment (GE).
At a press briefing this week, several education policy experts and advocates said that this GE rule is key to holding for-profits accountable.
The federal Higher Education Act (HEA) requires that all career education programs that receive federal student aid “prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.” But HEA does not define “gainful employment.” So, in 2014, ED adopted a rule that defined GE to make sure graduates of federally-funded career education programs earned enough money to pay back the debt they took on to enroll in the programs. During the Trump administration, however, this GE rule was rescinded and has not yet been restored under Biden.
