Brad Schimel Refuses to Protect Student Loan Borrowers, Again

MADISON, Wis. — The refusal of Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, to move forward with rules protecting student loan borrowers from predatory for-profit colleges has triggered a lawsuit from the Attorneys General of eighteen states and the District of Columbia.

The rules were intended address loan forgiveness for students in cases when they were victimized by predatory for profit colleges engaging in dishonest practices. In Wisconsin there have been multiple instances of for-profit colleges abruptly closing, leaving students deep in debt and without the degrees or training they were paying for and working to earn.

However, Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel is not among those acting to protect student loan borrowers. Schimel previously declined to join Attorneys General from across the country, including from neighboring states Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa, to oppose a Trump-DeVos scheme to repeal consumer protections for student loan borrowers.

The following are the statements of One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross:

“While Attorneys General across the country continue to take actions to protect the rights of student loan borrowers, Brad Schimel continues to do nothing.

“Schimel created a $1 million Office of Solicitor General that he used, when Barack Obama was President, to sue the federal government to protect polluters, to discriminate against transgender students and to bash immigrants.

“But now Brad Schimel is unwilling to stand up to Donald Trump and his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, even as they undermine protections for student loan borrowers working hard to get their education and taking on the personal responsibility to pay for it.

“It’s way past time for Brad Schimel to stop using his office to do the political thing for his own career and start doing the right thing for the people he was elected to serve.”