“The substance of our proposal will not be built on any supposed financial impact and has played no role in Secretary DeVos’s decision making,” Ms. Hill said. “Secretary DeVos has been clear that the rule must be built on protecting all students from unfair deprivation of their education, empowering complainants to seek a remedy that meets their needs, aligning regulatory requirements with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Title IX, and reducing federal micromanagement of schools.”

The draft document has to be vetted by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which will conduct its own economic impact analysis before the department formally publishes the rule for public comment.

Victims rights advocates said the proposed regulations ignored the most significant cost.

“It strikes me that one thing that’s not included in the cost is the one in five women dropping out of school because their school won’t investigate their complaints of sexual violence, and that is a cost that affects everybody,” said Adaku Onyeka-Crawford, senior counsel for education at the National Women’s Law Center.

But Kimberly C. Lau, a lawyer who represents accused students at the New York law firm Warshaw Burstein, said equating the decline in investigations to a lack of regard for complainants “misses the big picture.”

“The decline in investigations may decrease the pressure on schools to be results-oriented in their approach and more focused on how the process is implemented,” Ms. Lau said. “If the department is focused on the process, then the right outcomes will naturally result one way or another.”

The proposed regulations would replace temporary guidance put in place last fall when Ms. DeVos rescinded a pair of controversial documents issued under the Obama administration that outlined how schools should meet their legal obligations to address episodes of sexual misconduct.

In its draft, the Education Department wrote that the Obama-era guidance “made institutions liable for conduct of which they were unaware,” and that the rules exceeded existing laws by “requiring institutions to respond to conduct less severe than proscribed by Title IX.”