Rep. Cisneros Votes to Override President's Veto and Protect Students Defrauded by Predatory Colleges

Press Release

Today, Representative Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr. (CA-39) voted to override the President's veto of H.J.Res. 76, Blocking DeVos Rule That Denies Relief to Students Defrauded by Predatory Colleges. Rep. Cisneros is a cosponsor of the resolution. Earlier this year, a bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate successfully passed H.J.Res. 76, sending the joint resolution to the President's desk. Rep. Cisneros voted to pass the resolution on January 16th.

"I've heard from students, including countless student veterans, who have been defrauded by predatory, for-profit colleges. Too many of them have been taken advantage of and left with crushing debt," said Rep. Cisneros. "It's disgraceful that Secretary DeVos and President Trump would turn their backs on students and veterans and deny them relief. I'm voting today to protect students, student veterans, and taxpayers from Secretary DeVos' backward rule."

H.J.Res. 76 would have immediately blocked a highly damaging Trump Administration Rule issued by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that makes it much harder for defrauded student borrowers to get relief, severely restricts how much relief borrowers can receive, and shifts the cost of providing relief from predatory colleges to taxpayers.

In 2016, following the collapse of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute -- two major for-profit college chains that consistently defrauded students--President Obama issued the Borrower Defense Rule, creating a streamlined process to help defrauded borrowers access relief and move forward with their lives.

However, since taking office in 2017, Secretary DeVos has openly refused to implement the Obama-era Borrower Defense Rule, which has left hundreds of thousands of defrauded borrowers waiting for relief.

Then, in August 2019, DeVos issued a drastically revised "Borrower Defense Rule," which makes it harder for defrauded borrowers to get relief, severely restricts how much relief borrowers can receive, and shifts the cost of providing debt relief from predatory schools to taxpayers.

An analysis of the new DeVos Rule estimates that the share of eligible loan debt forgiven under the Borrower Defense Rule would drop from 53 percent using the Obama-era standard to just 3 percent under the new DeVos Rule.

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