Both houses of Congress are formally opposing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s borrower defense rule finalized last September, with 10 Republican senators joining Democrats on Wednesday to approve a resolution expressing disapproval of the rule.
The House passed a similar measure in January—both the House and Senate resolutions would restore the rules that existed under the Obama administration.
The Trump administration’s management of the borrower defense regulation—which cancels federal student loans for borrowers whose institutions misrepresented their educational offerings, job placement outcomes, or otherwise misled their students—has been the focus of widespread public attention over the past three years, as well as the subject of litigation.
ACE and 20 other higher education groups submitted comments in 2018 on the proposed rule, telling the Department of Education that it would make asserting a successful borrower defense claim functionally impossible and incentivize practices we know to be harmful to students.
Congress’s resolution still needs President Trump's signature, which seems unlikely—although the administration has been sending mixed messages on that front. If he does veto the measure, the new rule will go into effect on July 1.