Ayanna Pressley

I think it's a failure to enforce--the rule would give an additional $5.3 billion to almost exclusively for-profit programs.

Now, the rule can only be enforced if a second year of failing ratings occurs. Yet, under the Trump administration, the Department has issued no additional ratings since the 2017 data set.

In 2014, the Obama Administration proposed the gainful employment rule. This was proposed as an accountability standard for all career-focused nondegree programs.

Can you commit to providing this committee a detailed plan in the next two weeks, explaining how you plan to expeditiously address these 160,000 unprocessed claims?

The FOIA documents show that Corinthian's marketing and advertising plan was tailored to low-income people and single mothers of color specifically.

To add insult to injury, some of these students have even had their tax refunds garnished as their claims have been stalled.

The Project on Predatory Lending at Harvard reports that up to 14,000 students from ITT, the for-profit chain which collapsed in 2016, are still awaiting their claims to be processed.

In June of last year in a judgment against Secretary DeVos that prevented the Department from collecting on certain Corinthian College students, the ruling stated, and I quote: Nothing in this order, nothing in this order prohibits the…

Well, that is absolutely unacceptable.

It is unconscionable that we have been delayed in processing over 158,000 borrower defense claims of defrauded and deceived students.

I am proud that my home state of Massachusetts, thanks to the tireless work both, respectively, of Attorney General Martha Coakley, initially who was my partner in this effort, and now my dear friend and partner in this effort, Attorney…

It's even more appalling when you consider that Secretary DeVos, a person Forbes referred to as a, quote/unquote, 'the Queen of debt'--what an awful moniker--has been slow or unwilling to provide debt relief to those who took out these…

As a result of loopholes, these schools have lined their pockets with 100 percent of Federal taxpayer dollars, while consistently failing to meet quality benchmarks and demonstrating a pattern of breaking state and Federal laws.

This industry raked in record profits at the expense of the hopes and dreams of many of our most vulnerable communities.

Yes or no, if left unaddressed, which I believe they are unaddressed because this budget does not reflect the need, do you believe the substandard public housing conditions post a risk to tenants physical, mental and emotional health?

Would you let your grandmother live in public housing?

Do Ms. Norcross and her family deserve to live in these conditions because they are poor?

The evidence is clear that if we do not invest the necessary funds today, we will pay the price in people's health tomorrow.

Yes or no, do you believe the substandard public housing conditions pose a risk to tenants' physical, mental, and emotional health if left unaddressed?

But, again, given your medical background, perhaps you could weigh in on the health consequences of failing to invest in safe housing.

And so it pains me that your gifted hands and mine are doing the bidding and carrying the water of what I believe to be one of the most morally bankrupt Presidents in our nation's history.

Housing is a fundamental human right, and the displacement of families should be regarded as the public health crisis that it is.

There isn't a country in this world where this type of greed and conduct will be tolerated.

Your failure to do so is indefensible.

The more time we waste, the more lives that we are losing.