Top Education Dept. Official Is Said to Depart for Obama’s Re-election Campaign

James Kvaal, the White House aide who became the Education Department’s top political appointee on higher education a little over a year ago, is leaving his job for the campaign trail, sources with knowledge of the decision said on Wednesday.

Mr. Kvaal, who has led the department through a controversial rule-making process that is being challenged in court, will reportedly become legislative director for President Obama’s re-election campaign.

His departure came as a disappointment to nonprofit-college lobbyists but not as a surprise. The Obama administration has accomplished many of his top policy goals for higher education, and Mr. Kvaal previously served as a special assistant to the president.

Mr. Kvaal took over as deputy under secretary of education from Robert M. Shireman last June, and has generally stuck to the course set by his predecessor and onetime colleague in the Clinton White House. When he arrived on the job, the department was in the midst of making rules that tightened a ban on recruiter compensation, expanded state oversight of distance education, and, most controversially, created a federal measure of “gainful employment.”

The last of those rules became final in June, but for-profit colleges are suing to block several of them. In July a federal district court’s decision struck down a portion of the “state authorization” rule; the department is appealing.

The department has not announced who will succeed Mr. Kvaal, but one possibility is Gabriella Gomez, the department’s assistant secretary for legislation and Congressional affairs. Before joining the department, in 2009, Ms. Gomez was the top higher-education aide to Rep. George Miller, a Democrat of California, who was then chairman of the House education committee.