Washington Post: Are Betsy DeVos’s policies exacerbating racial inequities in student debt? These lawmakers think so

Senate and House Democrats are accusing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos of exacerbating racial disparities in student debt by failing to help defrauded borrowers, enforce consumer protections and examine the root causes of debt inequity.

They point to the rewriting of Obama-era regulations intended to guard against predatory for-profit colleges, highlighting two rules known as borrower defense to repayment and gainful employment. As originally conceived, those regulations would benefit students of color, who at higher rates enroll in for-profit schools, take out loans, fail to graduate and default on the debt.

Sixty-two congressional Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), sent DeVos a letter Monday urging her to create a task force to study the challenges facing borrowers of color and to propose solutions to help them get out of debt. They want the Education Department to collect and report annual data on loan default rates, repayment rates and loan delinquency by race, ethnicity, sex, loan type, school and the company handling the loan.

Read the full story on The Washington Post website here.

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