A transcript of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ interview with The Associated Press, conducted last Wednesday in her office:
AP: President Trump has talked a lot about undoing some of the Obama legacy. When it comes to education can you talk to us about the areas where you think you’ve been successful in this regard? What is the federal role, the federal government’s role in education and how do you accomplish those goals?
DeVOS: Well those are a number of questions. Let me start with what we believe the federal government’s role is in education and that is a much less heavy footprint than has been present in recent years. We really believe that states are the best laboratories of democracy on many fronts and we are in the middle of moving to implement the ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, which really dissolves power back to the states and gives them a lot more flexibility around meeting the needs of students in their unique states and with their unique situations. And we think that there has been an overreach in many cases on the part of the federal government in really intruding on states’ issues and states’ areas of responsibility as well as trying to engineer things from the federal level in a way that is not helpful to students overall.
AP: What about the Obama legacy? Have you been successful in looking at things that were done before and were …
DeVOS: From a higher ed perspective there were a number of regulations which we think have been very onerous and have targeted certain kinds of institutions based on their tax status and has been to the detriment ultimately of both those institutions and the students that are served. Those are areas in which we are pausing the regulations around gainful employment, borrower defense repayment, and we’re really examining a lot of other regulations and letters that have been put out in the course of the last eight years to see what ones really are serving students well and are really respectful of everyone involved.
AP: Just to follow up on that. You talked about institutions based on their tax status, so the for-profit schools, many of them have been found to have defrauded students, that have not provided the education that they were promised and the ability to find jobs. Has the fact that President Trump had a for-profit college, Trump University, that was sued for fraud complicated your efforts in this area at all.
DeVOS: Well, I go back to what I said originally about the fact that we believe the last administration really stepped much more heavily into areas that it should not and at the expense of a broader look at all institutions. Look, we are concerned and we are, we want to make sure that students have the best chance for a bright future. That involves first of all being much more aware of the full range of options and pathways of higher education so that’s a principle that you’re going to hear the president and me and others in the administration talk more broadly about. We have not done a good job at encouraging students to look at all their options when pursuing post-high school education. Career and technical education has been sort of diminished and dismissed over many years. That is an area we believe has bright promise for many students and needs to be elevated and honored in a way that really is, notes the opportunities there. But back to your original question around students and the opportunities they have, let’s be clear, no student should be defrauded and in case of fraud there should be remedy. But we also know this approach has been unevenly applied and if there’s going to be regulation around some institutions we believe it needs to be fairly applied across the board. And so going back and going through a whole proper process to look at this area and these regulations involves really a balanced approach involving feedback and input from all stakeholders, students, institutions alike.
