WASHINGTON — For-profit colleges will have to limit how much debt students amass in career-training programs or have their federal funding cut, according to rules issued Thursday by the White House.

The rules are the culmination of years of contentious debates over the responsibility for-profit colleges have to ensure that graduates of career programs receive “gainful employment.” While the restrictions could place 1,400 programs in jeopardy of losing federal student aid, critics say the rules still leave room for schools to abuse the system.

Administration officials championed the rules in 2009 as a way to protect students from programs that could leave them drowning in debt. For-profit colleges, which get most of their revenues from federal student aid, argued that they were being unfairly targeted and the regulations would hurt low-income students.

The new rules, which take effect in July 2015, require programs to show their graduates having loan burdens that don’t exceed certain levels of their pay. It will cover thousands of programs at for-profit colleges and non-degree programs at public and private nonprofit colleges.

But critics say the regulations are too lax because they only examine the debt burdens of those who graduate from the programs – not those who drop out.

“The regulation is ripe for manipulation,” said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. “The majority of students at for-profits don’t graduate. This regulation takes no recognition of their plight, so why even do it?”

Under the new rules, the loan payments of a typical graduate at a program cannot exceed 20 percent of discretionary income or 8 percent of total earnings. Programs with graduates whose loan payments equal 20 to 30 percent of discretionary income, or 8 to 12 percent of total annual income, would be placed in a warning zone.

A program would be labeled failing if typical graduates have loan payments that surpass 30 percent of discretionary earnings or 12 percent of annual earnings.

Programs that fail in two out of any three consecutive years – or land in the danger zone for four consecutive years – will be ineligible for aid.

Based on the department’s estimates, about 1,400 programs would not pass the accountability standards, up from the 193 projected in 2012.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said none of the programs will be immediately disqualified, but “these regulations are a necessary step to ensure that colleges accepting federal funds protect students, cut costs and improve outcomes.”

The fight over these rules has dragged on for much of Obama’s two terms.

In 2012, a federal judge blocked a key provision in the administration’s proposed rules, sending the department back to the drawing board. In March, the administration proposed a new metric looking at the rate of default among both graduates and dropouts at any given time.

Thursday’s rules, however, eliminated that measure.