Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum joined her Democratic peers in 17 states and the District of Columbia in suing U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for delaying Obama-era rules designed to crack down on for-profit colleges that engage in abusive and deceptive practices,

The state officials contend the rules would have protected hundreds of thousands of students, allowing some of them to have their student loans forgiven.

In the suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in D.C., the 19 parties allege DeVos violated federal law, in part, by not providing adequate time or sufficient justification for delaying the previous administration's rules, which were set to take effect Saturday.

"Had this rule gone into effect on July 1, as intended, it would have provided important protections for borrowers who have been victimized by certain predatory for-profit schools," Rosenblum said in a statement. "It's unfathomable to me that the U.S. Department of Education would delay a rule designed to hold for-profit-colleges accountable to those who borrowed to attend their school."

Rosenblum said the lawsuit is intended to protect students "who too often end up saddled with student debt with little to show for it." For-profit schools receive the vast majority of their revenue from federal student loans and grants, the lawsuit said. In 2009 and 2010, for-profit businesses accounted for nearly a quarter of the federal loans distributed, despite having just 10 percent of the total enrollment.

The Obama administration levied a series of new regulations on the for-profit sector in response to the 2015 bankruptcy of then-giant Corinthian Colleges Inc. Last August, the administration came down hard on ITT Tech, preventing the for-profit chain from enrolling new students who rely on financial aid to attend school. ITT Tech also shuttered last year.

One of the rules would've made it easier for students at for-profit colleges to discharge federal loans. The loan forgiveness program – known as borrower-defense regulations – has been in effect for decades, but the Obama administration streamlined the claims process and gave the federal government more power to "hold schools accountable."

The Education Department announced the new rules on borrower protections last November after a two-year process.

But the Trump administration contends the effort "failed to account for the interests of all stakeholders."

Liz Hill, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, called the lawsuit "ideologically driven" in a statement provided to the media. "The state attorneys general are saying to regulate first, and ask the legal questions later," Hill said, "which also seems to be the approach of the prior administration that adopted borrower-defense regulations through a heavily politicized process."

On June 14, DeVos delayed the borrower rules and announced that her department intended "to develop fair, effective and improved regulations to protect individual borrowers from fraud, ensure accountability across institutions of higher education and protect taxpayers."

"Last year's rulemaking effort missed an opportunity to get it right. The result is a muddled process that's unfair to students and schools, and puts taxpayers on the hook for significant costs. It's time to take a step back and make sure these rules achieve their purpose: helping harmed students," she said in a statement.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen