Washington, D.C. — Late last week, the Education Department formerly repealed the “gainful employment” regulation that had unfairly targeted for-profit colleges. Lindsey Burke, director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, offered the following response:

“The federal government shouldn’t punish students who choose for-profit colleges or vocational training. This rule’s application in the higher education arena was clearly political, as it wasn’t applied evenly to all institutions.”

“A better way to infuse accountability into higher education is to rethink the vast amount of federal student loans available today, which have led to family-level debt and taxpayer exposure to hundreds of billions in outstanding student loan debt. Congress should eliminate the PLUS program and put caps on the Direct Loan program to make space for private lending to re-emerge as well as innovative financing options that can better meet the needs of students while protecting taxpayers.”