Courts Rule on Gainful Employment Provisions

A federal judge in the Northern District of Texas blocked part of the Biden Administration’s new Gainful Employment (GE) rule that states that the length of a GE program may not exceed 100% of the minimum number of hours that a state requires for licensure.

Calling the new GE program length rule the “Bare Minimum Rule,” District Judge Mark Pittman declared that the Department overstepped its authority under the Higher Education Act by promulgating a rule that represents a “sea-change from thirty years of established practice.” The previous version of this rule allowed programs to run up to 150% of the state’s minimum required hours for licensure.

A second lawsuit, which sought to block the Biden Administration’s new GE rule, however, has been dismissed. District Judge Reed O’Connor, also in the Northern District of Texas, ruled that the plaintiffs failed to meet the high evidentiary bar required to support issuing a nationwide injunction on the rule.