Betsy DeVos
Betsy DeVos is named in 12 events across the Capture Cascade Timeline, from 2014 to 2022.
Quick facts
| Full name | Elisabeth Dee “Betsy” DeVos (née Prince) |
| Born | January 8, 1958 |
| Education | B.A., business economics, Calvin College, 1979 |
| Family wealth | $9.3 billion (combined DeVos family wealth, Forbes, 2025) — among America’s richest families |
| Spouse | Richard “Dick” DeVos Jr., son of Amway co-founder Richard DeVos Sr. (married 1979) |
| Brother | Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater |
| Father | Edgar Prince, founder of Prince Corporation (auto parts); sold to Johnson Controls for $1.3 billion in 1996 |
| Best known for | 11th U.S. Secretary of Education (2017-2021) |
Key positions
| Role | Years |
|---|---|
| Michigan Republican Party chair | 1996-2000 |
| Founder / chair, American Federation for Children | — |
| Founder or leader of multiple school-choice groups (Alliance for School Choice, All Children Matter, Great Lakes Education Project, others) | — |
| 11th U.S. Secretary of Education | 2017-2021 |
Biography
Betsy DeVos was born Elisabeth Dee Prince into the family of industrialist Edgar Prince, whose Prince Corporation auto-parts company sold to Johnson Controls for $1.3 billion in 1996. In 1979 she married Dick DeVos Jr., son of Amway co-founder Richard DeVos Sr., merging two billionaire families; Forbes estimated the combined DeVos family wealth at $9.3 billion in 2025, ranking it among America’s richest families. Her brother is Erik Prince, founder of the private military contractor Blackwater. She holds a B.A. in business economics from Calvin College (1979) and arrived at the Education Department having never taught, run a school district, or attended a public school.
For more than two decades before her appointment, DeVos funded and led the school-privatization movement, chairing the American Federation for Children and bankrolling voucher and charter campaigns. She chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and spent roughly $3 million on a 2000 Michigan ballot initiative for universal vouchers that voters rejected 69-31%. In a 1997 Roll Call interview she wrote of her family’s political giving: “I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return.”
Nominated by Donald Trump in January 2017, DeVos was confirmed on February 7, 2017 by a 51-50 Senate vote with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie — the first time in U.S. history a Vice President cast the deciding vote on a Cabinet nomination. Two Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, joined Democrats in voting no. As Secretary she rewrote the Obama-era “Borrower Defense” rule so that the department’s own estimate projected only about 3% of borrowed dollars would be forgiven, rescinded the for-profit-college “Gainful Employment” rule, and was found in contempt of court in 2019 for illegally collecting on student loans during litigation. Seventeen state attorneys general sued over her rollback of student protections.
DeVos resigned on January 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol attack, telling Trump in her resignation letter, “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.” Reporting indicates she discussed invoking the 25th Amendment with other Cabinet members before resigning; no Cabinet invocation occurred. In the 2024 Republican primary she backed Ron DeSantis and, as of October 2024, declined to endorse Trump, saying she would support “the Republican ticket.” She held no role in the second Trump administration. Her long-pursued federal tax-credit mechanism for private-school scholarships — a version of the “Education Freedom Scholarships” she proposed in 2019 — was enacted as Section 70411 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025.
Sources
- Wikipedia — Betsy DeVos — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_DeVos
- Miller Center — Betsy DeVos (2017-2021) — https://millercenter.org/betsy-devos-2017-2021
- Britannica — Betsy DeVos Biography — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Betsy-DeVos
- Center for American Progress — The DeVos Dynasty: A Family of Extremists — https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-devos-dynasty-a-family-of-extremists/
- NPR — Betsy DeVos Confirmed As Education Secretary With Vice President Mike Pence Breaking Tie (February 7, 2017) — https://www.npr.org/2017/02/07/513836576/pence-becomes-first-vp-to-break-senate-tie-over-cabinet-nomination
- CBS News — Betsy DeVos resigns from Trump cabinet after Capitol attack (January 7, 2021) — https://www.cbsnews.com/news/betsy-devos-resigns-education-secretary/