Under the Obama administration, the Education Department made it a top priority to curtail predatory practices by for-profit colleges. It investigated and sanctioned schools accused of fraud, made it easier for their students to seek debt relief, and threatened to withhold funding from for-profits whose graduates consistently failed to find jobs in their fields.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ proposal to rein in federal loan forgiveness for defrauded students contains inaccurate statements about how the Education Department previously handled fraud claims, according to a consumer advocacy group. Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Lending says that emails and documents show that the Trump administration erroneously described how the department processed student fraud claims during the last two decades.

People with student loans could soon find it harder to prove that the federal government should forgive their debts based on allegations of false promises or frauds by their schools. The Trump administration on Wednesday issued a proposed new rule for dealing with so-called borrower defense claims filed by former students who say colleges misled them with unrealistic data about their job prospects after graduation or other frauds.

Students who are defrauded by their schools would have a harder time getting their federal loans erased under new rules proposed by the Trump administration Wednesday. The proposal, which aims to replace a set of Obama-era rules that were never implemented, drew applause from the for-profit industry but sharp criticism from advocacy groups that represent student borrowers.