Media Availability
September 27, 2023

Nationally Known Policy Expert and Student Veterans
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U.S. Department of Education’s Gainful Employment Rule

Today, the Department of Education published the long-awaited gainful employment and financial value transparency rule to weed out worthless career training programs and provide basic cost and earnings information about all postsecondary programs.

The following student veterans could speak to the devastating consequences of attending a low-performing education program from which their debt overwhelmed their earnings and from which their earnings were no better than that of a high school graduate – the very point of the new Gainful Employment rule released today by the U.S. Department of Education, following a year of rulemaking.

  • Brian Whitehead (Atlanta, Georgia); An Army veteran who served from 2000 to 2005 and attended ITT. He studied computer and electrical engineering, earning an associate degree. He has never gotten a job in his field. TESTIMONY
  • Tasha Berkhalter (Lima, OH); An Army veteran who attended ITT from 2006-2010 and who had approximately $100,000.00 in loans. TESTIMONY
  • Quenton Ross (Detroit, Michigan), a Navy veteran, served from 2008 to 2012 and graduated from Full Sail University, where he studied Recording Arts; Entertainment Business. TESTIMONY. Quenton is available for comment beginning September 30, 2023.

Also available for interviews is national expert on higher education, Barmak Nassirian, Vice President of Higher Education Policy at Veterans Education Success, who said, “For far too long, federal financing policy has allowed schools to obfuscate the most basic facts about the costs and outcomes of the programs they offer. This rule will, for the first time, provide parents and prospective students with the kind of information that we take for granted in every other consumer decision. Equally as important, career programs that fail the minimal requirements of this rule would either have to improve financial outcomes for students or shut down.”

  • Barmak Nassirian, Vice President of Higher Education Policy at Veterans Education Success, (202) 262-4684.
media availability - GE final rule