WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department says it'll miss a key deadline in its push to ease regulations for for-profit colleges.

A rule being drafted by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (dih-VAHS') is meant to lower protections for students swindled by their schools. So the delay, laid out in a court filing late Tuesday, is a victory for student borrowers.

The department says it won't meet the Nov. 1 deadline to publish the new regulation because of pending litigation and the large number of comments it's received from educators and other groups. As a result, the new rule won't take effect until the summer of 2020.

Aaron Ament is president of the National Student Legal Defense Network. He calls it "a tremendous victory for students."

The Education Department isn't commenting.