FAQ: What We Know About ED's Recent ITT Announcement

Recently, the Department of Education announced that it will approve a small portion of borrower defense applications for former ITT students, with 18,000 borrowers to receive a 100% discharge of their ITT debt. While this is great news for those select borrowers, there are still a lot of questions around what this means for the more than 700,000 former ITT students who were scammed by the school.

Here are some answers to questions we’ve been receiving from borrowers to help sort through the process and show what happens next.

1.  How do I know if I am included in the group of 18,000 former ITT students that are now getting 100% cancellation on their borrower defense application?

The short answer is the Department of Education has said it will be reaching out to all qualified borrowers in the coming weeks. You shouldn’t have to do anything. The Department has said that it is giving 100% discharges to people who claimed that ITT made significant misrepresentations related to how much they could expect to earn and the jobs they could obtain after graduation (employment prospects), and the ability to transfer credits in their Borrower Defense applications.

2. If I qualify for this discharge, will I also get a refund on any money I already paid on my loans?

The Department’s announcement did not mention refunds. We will post more information as soon as we receive it.

3.  If I qualify for this discharge, does it matter which campus I attended or which program I was in?

No, according to the Department of Education, they are extending this discharge to all campuses and programs.

4.  I made claims about ITT misleading me regarding employment prospects and/or ability the to transfer credits in my application, but I did not hear from the Department of Education that I am getting a discharge. What do I do?

It may take the Department several months to contact everyone who is getting a discharge. In addition, we do not know exactly the criteria or standards the Department used to make these determinations. What we currently know is that the Department said in their announcement that for employment prospects claims, the timeframe for the claims they are using is 2005 to 2016. For claims about the ability to transfer credits, they are using 2007 to 2014 as the timeframe.

5.  Is there anything I can do to find out if I am part of this discharge announcement?

You may contact the Borrower Defense Hotline, 1-855-279-6207, to ask them if they have any information on your application. You can also contact the Department of Education’s Ombudsman office at 1-877-557-2575.

6.  I previously got a denial. How does this affect me?

If your claim has already been denied, this announcement does not affect you. However, the Department of Education has said that, for all people whose borrower defense applications have been denied since December 2019, those loans will be held in forbearance until the resolution of the Sweet v. Cardona case.

7.  Will anyone who attended ITT, other than these 18,000 people, ever get relief?

The recent announcement is good news for the borrowers who are covered, but there are still hundreds of thousands of borrowers who still have not received a decision on their borrower defense application, or had their application denied. The Project on Predatory Student Lending is continuing to fight on behalf of all students who were cheated by their school and by the borrower defense process.

8.  Is it too late to apply for a Borrower Defense to have my ITT loans cancelled?

No, it is not too late. You can find more information about filing a Borrower Defense application on the Department’s website.

For more information on ITT and our current lawsuit, please visit our Villalba et al. V ITT case page.