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The U.S. Department of Education has announced another round of student loan forgiveness for scholars who were tricked into debt to fund their education.
Last week the agency announced $415 million in student loan debt from select borrowers would be canceled. Almost 16,000 people claimed to have been swayed into hefty student loan debt by predatory practices. Many of the individuals attended DeVry University, which has been at the center of negligence claims for misleading students into damaging debt.
Between 2008 and 2015, DeVry University purposefully deceived students by claiming that 90 percent of its graduates obtained jobs in their fields within six months of graduation. However, DeVry’s graduate job placement was much lower, landing at nearly 58 percent. Donna Shaults, a representative for DeVry, confirmed that the school’s leadership had undergone several changes since the federal government first made this discovery. Despite this, Shaults says the school denies any wrongdoing.
Other institutions that used similar deceitful practices include Minnesota School of Business/Globe University, ITT Nursing, and Westwood College Employment Prospects, which also touted a high job placement rate. Westwood also lied to students by telling them that they’d help pay their bills if they couldn’t find a job within six months of graduating. There is no evidence to suggest that the school helped graduates financially.
“When colleges and career schools put their own interests ahead of students, we will not look the other way,” Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer Richard Cordray said in a statement.
“The Department remains committed to giving borrowers discharges when the evidence shows their college violated the law and standards,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “Students count on their colleges to be truthful. Unfortunately, today’s findings show too many instances in which students were misled into loans at institutions or programs that could not deliver what they’d promised.”
Including these latest actions, the Department of Education has now approved approximately $16 billion in loan discharges for more than 680,000 borrowers. This includes:
- Almost $5 billion for 70,000 borrowers through improvements to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
- $7.8 billion for more than 400,000 borrowers who have a total and permanent disability.
- $1.2 billion for borrowers who previously attended ITT Technical Institutes before it closed.
