A federal judge gave the Department of Education 90 days to file a response outlining its position on a set of regulations put in place by the Biden administration to hold career education programs accountable.
Lawyers for the Trump administration say incoming officials at the department need “additional time … to become familiar with and evaluate their position regarding the issues in this case,” according to the motion to stay proceedings for 90 days. (The Senate has yet to confirm an education secretary, and the Trump administration has only publicly named about a dozen appointees for the agency.)
If the stay had not been granted, the department would have had to file its final brief—the last written argument in support of its cross-motion—by Feb. 14. Now that date is May 16.
The lawsuit was filed by a trade association representing cosmetology schools in December 2023 over the Biden imposed regulations known as gainful employment. They argue that the standards the rule sets for student performance and postgraduation outcomes would jeopardize the “very existence” of certain trade programs and that it uses flawed measures to determine whether graduates of career education programs are getting a return on investment. They urged the court to block the new regulations from taking effect.
The gainful-employment regulations, which include new reporting requirements for all colleges as part of a financial value transparency framework, took effect in July 2024. The regulations require institutions to report data that measures whether graduates earn more than the average high school graduate in their state as well as enough money to repay their student loans. For-profit and nondegree programs that fail either of those tests twice in a three-year period could lose access to federal financial aid. Most cosmetology schools would fail under the new rule.
But there has been pushback from lobbyist groups that represent colleges and universities, which say the staff at many institutions are already stretched thin and may not be able to accurately collect and report the data Education Department officials are looking for. Colleges were granted two extensions, pushing the data-reporting deadline back from July 31, 2024, to Jan. 15, 2025. But when they asked for a third extension, the department, then still under Biden’s oversight, said no. The department did, however, provide a pseudo-extension for colleges to update their data until Feb. 15.
“The Department has encountered practical challenges in its efforts to implement the regulations at issue in this case … during this first year and, as a result, does not expect to issue any results for the initial year’s metric calculations under those regulations before the fall,” the department stated in its court filings. “Plaintiffs therefore will not be prejudiced by the requested stay.”
President Trump and his appointees have not yet indicated how they want to proceed with the gainful-employment rule. In his first term, Trump scrapped a version of the regulations.
Some higher education policy experts expect the Trump administration to repeal the gainful-employment rule entirely, but others say he may attempt to defend the policy in court and make certain amendments. Congressional Republicans have been seeking to bolster federal accountability measures in higher ed, and advocates argue the rule is key to holding programs accountable.
But as the president reiterates plans to dismantle the department altogether, it’s hard to tell how the agency will proceed.
