WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), along with 15 of their Senate colleagues, today urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL), and Senate Appropriations Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), to explicitly direct any additional emergency funding specifically for institutions of higher education to public and private, nonprofit institutions. In a letter to the Senate Leaders and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairmen, Durbin, Warren, and their colleagues cited past efforts during times of economic crisis by the for-profit college industry to lure students – often low income, veterans, and students of color – with false or misleading promises to get them to enroll and take on massive debt for an education that was worthless. The Senators urged additional support to students, states, and public and private, nonprofit colleges and universities in future recovery packages.
“At its 2010-11 peak, the for-profit college industry received $32 billion a year in revenue from Department of Education federal financial aid. Despite never enrolling more than a 13 percent of all postsecondary students, for-profit colleges made up more than half of the top 25 institutions whose students owed the most in federal students loan debt in 2014. In 2000, only one for-profit college was on the list. The massive growth, widespread fraud, and poor outcomes of the for-profit college industry during and after the 2008 financial crisis contributed to the historic student debt crisis we face today—and which Congress was forced to face in the CARES Act with relief to federal student loan borrowers. We do not wish to see history repeat itself,” the Senators wrote.
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Estimates show that the for-profit college industry could receive up to $1 billion in funding from the already passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Earlier this month, Warren, Durbin, and their colleagues asked Secretary DeVos to direct CARES Act funding to public and nonprofit institutions.
Joining Durbin and Warren on today’s letter include Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jack Reed (D-RI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bob Casey (D-PA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
