In her most sweeping action on higher education to date, Betsy DeVos on Wednesday announced plans to halt two Obama-era regulations aimed at holding for-profit colleges accountable and providing relief to students defrauded by them.

The first regulation targeted by President Donald Trump's education secretary is known as Borrower Defense to Repayment. The rule outlines how student loan borrowers who have been defrauded can apply to have their loans forgiven. The department is currently processing 16,000 loan forgiveness claims.

The second regulation, which is already in effect, is known as gainful employment. It aims to hold schools accountable for outcomes of students by requiring schools to prove that their graduates’ incomes compared to their debts will allow them to pay back their student loans. Programs that don’t meet that standard are barred from accessing federal funds.

The announcement sent student loan and consumer advocates, civil rights groups and others into a frenzy. They blasted the administration for a decision that they said would make it easier for for-profit schools to defraud students and evade accountability, make it harder for defrauded students to get their loans discharged, and amounts to a significant waste of tax payer dollars.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who has been a fierce critic of the sector, even announced plans to sue DeVos.

“This is a betrayal of students and families across the country who are drowning in unaffordable debt,” she said in a statement. “I will be suing Secretary DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education to defend these critical regulations and the right of our students and taxpayers.”

But the education secretary said the decision was made in the best interest of students and taxpayers.

“My first priority is to protect students,” DeVos said in a statement. “Fraud, especially fraud committed by a school, is simply unacceptable.”

The secretary said that her office has fielded concerns about the regulations from colleges and universities of all types.

The Obama rules “missed an opportunity to get it right,” she said, and they’ve resulted in a “muddled process” that will cost taxpayers a significant amount of money. In regard to the gainful employment rules specifically, DeVos said that it’s “overly burdensome and confusing” for colleges and universities.

“It's time to take a step back and make sure these rules achieve their purpose: helping harmed students,” DeVos said. “It’s time for a regulatory reset.”

But the move elicited widespread condemnation.

Former Education Secretary John King, who is now the president and CEO of The Education Trust, called the decision “deeply worrisome.”

“These rules were put in place to protect taxpayers and students – particularly low-income students and students of color – who are most likely to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous institutions,” he said. “This action indicates, yet again, that this department is abdicating its responsibility to students and taxpayers.”

For some, the move cemented fears that the Trump administration would loosen restrictions the Obama administration put on the for-profit college sector in an effort to eliminate bad actors. One of the most recent hires at the department includes an executive from the for-profit industry, Robert Eitel.

“President Trump spent years defrauding and misleading students with his sham Trump University, so it’s no surprise his Administration wants to sit by while other predatory colleges defraud their students,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. “Thousands of borrowers who have been cheated by dishonest institutions are currently drowning in debt with no degree to show for it, so I am extremely disappointed that Secretary DeVos has decided, once again, to side with special interests and predatory for-profit colleges instead of students and borrowers.”

Jen Mishory, the executive director of the nonprofit Young Invincibles, which advocates in the interests of young adults, said the decision sends an alarming message that the administration is putting the interests of the for-profit college industry over that of students and taxpayers,

“Eliminating these two regulations serves as a toxic combination, simultaneously stripping students of protections and allowing poorly performing, predatory schools to proliferate,” she said.

Others lamented the long, arduous process that led to the regulations being finalized – a process that included multiple rounds of stakeholder input.

“Reopening the gainful employment rule will simply waste more taxpayer resources in an effort at a giveaway to poor-quality career training programs,” Ben Miller, senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, said. “This rule has been through two regulatory processes and multiple court cases.”

Persis Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, agreed: “These rules were created through robust negotiation processes,” he said. “Starting over wastes taxpayer money and creates uncertainty for students who are wondering how to protect themselves from being ripped off by predatory schools.”