DeVos testified before the House education committee one day after NPR published internal memos showing the secretary overruled her own department's findings that borrowers deserved full relief from their loans, because their college credits are essentially worthless. Hundreds of thousands of borrowers are in limbo, and several members referred to the memos in their questioning.
The questioning got heated and personal at times. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., in her trademark cowboy hat adorned with purple glitter, stated that the secretary was "out to destroy public education." Wilson told Devos, "You are the most unpopular person in our government. ... When many people vote in 2020 they will vote to remove you."
Rep. Virginia Foxx, the committee's ranking Republican, called those comments "over the line."
In answering questions from the panel, DeVos acknowledged some of the problems. "Yes, there is a backlog of borrower defense claims at Federal Student Aid," she said. "To say that I am frustrated by that is an understatement."
While she stated her intention to enforce current regulations in "good faith," DeVos also repeated her position that taxpayers' interests need to be protected when deciding who should get their money back and how much.
"Students are my number one priority," DeVos said in her opening statement. "They are why I come to work every day. So if students have been deceived by institutions and suffered financial harm as a result, they should be made whole."
More than 300,000 borrowers have pending claims, DeVos said Wednesday. Some have been waiting, in many cases for years, for the Education Department to decide their financial fate. Federal agencies found, starting in 2015, that some for-profit colleges, including the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, lied to these students about their job prospects and the value of their credits.
In the waning days of the Obama administration, the Education Department decided to grant full loan relief to these defrauded borrowers under a previously little-used rule called "borrower defense."
But when DeVos took over, she quickly made clear that the department would not be offering borrowers blanket relief. She came up with a new formula that would provide only partial relief to the vast majority of borrowers, based on their present-day income. That idea was stopped by the courts on the grounds that using Social Security earnings data to calculate relief violates borrowers' privacy.
Questioning by Republicans on the committee, including Rep. Fred Keller of Pennsylvania, focused on the court case as the reason that borrower relief has been delayed.
This week, DeVos came back with a new plan for partial relief that would rely on publicly available income data. In the hearing today, DeVos defended the principle of providing "fair relief to all borrowers who actually have been harmed. ... They would not be entitled to relief if they can't demonstrate they've been financially harmed."
But Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon was among many Democrats to argue that "just because someone is making money doesn't mean they weren't defrauded."
The secretary was defiant on Wednesday in her opposition to existing regulation and the findings of her own department.
After taking office, DeVos had to sign off on thousands of borrower defense claims that had already been approved by the previous administration. As pointed out by Wilson during the hearing, she added three words below her signature: "with extreme displeasure."
On Wednesday, DeVos said that the Obama administration had "weaponized borrower defense against schools that they didn't like." When asked directly, by Democrats Kim Schrier of Washington state and later by Andy Levin of Michigan, whether she believed Corinthian students had indeed been defrauded, the secretary did not answer.
'People Just Laugh in My Face'
Rep. Scott in his opening statement referred directly to NPR's reporting this week. "A media outlet published documents revealing that [the department's] own staff conducted research ... and found students deserved full debt relief."
He demanded: "Are there other relevant documents the department is withholding?"
NPR on Wednesday published previously unreleased, internal Education Department memos that show just how strongly career staff in the department's Borrower Defense Unit had come down on the side of defrauded borrowers.
According to the memos, the unit reviewed thousands of borrower complaints against Corinthian and ITT Tech. Just weeks before DeVos was sworn in as secretary, the unit recommended to the department's political leadership that these borrowers deserve no less than full relief from their student debts.