File photo of an ITT Technical Institute campus in Anaheim, California. Susan Goldman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

At a recent financial aid conference, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said that every school should help its students graduate with high-quality career prospects and minimal debt. Students should be equipped, DeVos added, with information that allows them to be responsible consumers. "They need to have the best possible tools, data, advice and support," DeVos said, at the Georgia World Congress Center in late November. Yet on Friday DeVos issued the final repeal of an Obama-era rule aimed at holding low-quality education programs accountable by forcing them to prove their graduates were able to repay their student debt. As part of the so-called gainful employment regulation, career education programs, including most for-profit colleges, were required to disclose debt and earnings data to prospective and current students. Poor-performing programs were at risk of losing their federal funding.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Getty Images