Students entering for-profit programs that claim to prepare students for employment might be at risk.
The U.S. Department of Education released last week a proposal to safeguard students from programs that might be exploitative, to prevent students from taking out too much debt to pay for the programs.
The regulations would set tests that for-profit and private programs must pass in order for students in their programs to be eligible for federal financial aid.
Programs would need to pass two different tests — the default rate for former students must not exceed 30 percent, and the estimated annual loan payment of typical graduates cannot exceed 20 percent of their discretionary earnings or eight percent of their total earnings, said Jane Glickman, spokeswoman for the Department of Education.
But advocates for students say the regulations are not going far enough.
Some of the people who might be affected are ones that want a "leg up," like the programs claim to give — including veterans and single moms, said Jennifer Wang, spokeswoman for Young Invincibles, an advocacy group for students.
“We know what ends up happening at programs that are underperforming is that young people take out all of this debt and then attend a program that really doesn’t offer them the skills or training that they were promised and isn’t respected in the job market or by employers,” she said.