Jay Urwitz: Trump administration a disaster for college students

From the moment Betsy DeVos was nominated as secretary of Education, those of us in the education field have been anxious about how the Trump administration’s policies would harm low-income college students. Our fears were justified — and then some.

Yet President Trump has not singled out low-income students. His policies have seriously harmed all current and future college students, except those whose daddies can buy their way into Penn and Harvard.

This fall, college students will worry about coronavirus. They’ll also need to worry about whether they can withstand another four years of Trump’s policies. People need a college education more than ever to be economically successful, yet no other administration has done so much to undermine the availability and quality of our colleges.

Trump has launched a pincer attack against college family finances from two directions.

The administration has repeatedly proposed cutting student grants and work study funds. It has wanted to raise payments for student loans and eliminate public service loan forgiveness.

The Trump administration and the Republican Senate have also refused to give states federal coronavirus relief funds. Without those funds, states will drastically cut appropriations for state colleges and universities. Those cuts — particularly as institutions need to reorient themselves in the coronavirus era — will inevitably harm quality.

The president has made higher education worse for women, veterans and even fraud victims.

The Trump administration has made the terrifying process of reporting sexual assault on campus infinitely worse — it has, for all intents and purposes, required intimidation. Now a person who reports sexual assault will probably personally face a lawyer hired by the person being accused. We can expect the number of unreported sexual assaults on campus to skyrocket if Trump wins a second term.

The Trump administration has also made it easier for colleges to lie to veterans. Take University of Phoenix, which the Department of Veterans Affairs has found misled veterans on issues like graduation, credit transfer and job placement. Nevertheless, the Trump administration cleared University of Phoenix to keep receiving GI Bill benefits.

The administration’s refusal to side with students extends even to fraud victims. Decades ago, the Higher Education Act said students would not have to repay student loans when a college promised good results from an education and did not deliver. The government would go after the colleges instead. It worked — the Obama administration relieved over 30,000 defrauded students. But the Trump administration has made the proof necessary to show fraud so high that it is virtually impossible to meet — and then stopped processing loan forgiveness anyway.

Finally, the Trump administration made it far easier for bad schools to offer poor educations and still take students’ money. Under federal law, academic quality is delegated to accreditation agencies. They qualify colleges on behalf of the federal government. The administration made the requirements accrediting agencies must uphold far weaker, doing away with objective standards for colleges. It then relaxed timing requirements so agencies can take four years before rescinding their accreditation, all the while allowing these bad schools to take students’ money and provide them little in return.

Perhaps I am being too harsh with the Trump administration. Perhaps this is Trump’s way of addressing inequality. Just make higher education worse for everyone.

Jay Urwitz was deputy general counsel for higher education issues at the U.S. Department of Education from 2015-17.