News
‘We’re Going to Lose a Generation of Student-Loan Borrowers’: Pressure Mounts to Extend Payment Pause | MarketWatch
When Catherine Bolton retired earlier this year, she entered her golden years with an obligation she’d hoped she would be done with by now: roughly $40,000 in student debt.
Betsy DeVos Ordered to Testify in Student Borrower Class Action | Courthouse News Service
Rejecting arguments that making a cabinet official testify threatens the separation of powers, a federal judge this week ordered former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to answer questions about long delays and mass denials of student debt relief claims.
Student Loan Borrowers Perplexed by Biden Administration’s Continued Defense of Trump-Era Lawsuits | Boston Globe
Amanda Kulka expected her six-year fight for student loan cancellation would be over by now. Powerful allies, including a state attorney general and a federal judge, agreed that she and other students in Massachusetts had been defrauded by the defunct for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges.
Left in the Lurch by Private Loans From For-Profit Colleges | New York Times
Ms. Campbell’s loan is a tiny fraction of the more than $30 million owed to Florida Career College’s parent company, the International Education Corporation. The company doesn’t care whether she, and thousands of others, ever fully pay it back. Its main reason for lending to people like her is so the company can operate its other, much more lucrative business model — reaping revenue from federal student aid. By law, a tenth of a for-profit school’s revenue must come from sources other than federal financial aid (loans, grants and other programs students use to pay for college) and loans like Ms. Campbell’s help them meet that quota.
90% of Borrowers Who Claim They Were Scammed By Their Schools Were Denied Relief | MarketWatch
Students who attended colleges that have misled them have the right under the law to have their federal student loans discharged, but over the past few years, accessing that relief has been nearly impossible, despite evidence of malfeasance by their schools, new documents suggest. More than 200 borrowers who attended a school where an admissions representative pled guilty to making a false statement in an application for federal student aid had their applications for relief denied by the Department of Education, according to the documents.
A DeVos System Allowed 12 Minutes to Decide Student Loan Forgiveness | New York Times
Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made no secret of her disdain for a program intended to forgive the federal student loans of borrowers who were ripped off by schools that defrauded their students. She called it a “free money” giveaway, let hundreds of thousands of claims languish for years, and slashed the amount of relief granted to some successful applicants to $0.
A First Move on Borrower Defense | Inside Higher Ed
The Education Department announced yesterday that students who were cheated by for-profit institutions and previously granted partial relief on their direct federal loans will now be granted full relief.
Students: DeVos’s Dept. Of Education Deliberately Thwarted Student Loan Forgiveness Program | Forbes
In new court documents filed today, student loan borrowers in an ongoing class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education accused officials acting under former Secretary Betsy DeVos of coordinating deliberate efforts to thwart a key student loan forgiveness program.
Education Department Announces Plan it Claims Will Help Scammed Students Discharge School Debt | ABA Journal
A 2019 U.S. Department of Education policy on student debt discharge, which raised the burden of proof for applicants claiming that they were misled by their schools and put in place a plan that only granted partial relief for some, was rescinded Thursday.
Is $10,000 In Student Loan Forgiveness Next, After Biden Administration Cancels $1 Billion? | Forbes
Yesterday, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced a policy shift that will result in $1 billion in student loan forgiveness. But what does that mean for the ongoing efforts by progressive lawmakers and consumer rights activists to convince President Biden to cancel student debt?