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The Biden Administration is canceling more student loan debt!

On Feb. 16, the Department of Education announced that nearly 16,000 borrowers who were misled by their schools would have their student loans completely cleared. The new measure will provide a whopping $415 million in relief for affected students.

On Wednesday, the Department found that students who attended four for-profit colleges were misled while enrolling into programs and taking out student loans to cover college fees. DeVry University was named in the investigation with nearly 1,800 borrowers expected to have their student loans discharged from the institution. According to MarketWatch, the agency’s data revealed that “between 2008 and 2015 DeVry advertised a 90 percent job placement rate to potential students, when the school’s actual job placement rate was 58 percent.” Now, former DeVry students will receive about $71.7 million in loan discharges under the agency’s new relief effort.

Miguel Cardona of the U.S. Secretary of Education released a statement about the historic move.

“The Department remains committed to giving borrowers discharges when the evidence shows their college violated the law and standards. Students count on their colleges to be truthful,” he explained. “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.” 

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In 2016, DeVry agreed to a $100 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over the allegation. They said they would provide students impacted by the school’s misconduct with compensation, in addition to canceling the debts of students who took loans out issued by DeVry.

The Department will discharge the debt of certain borrowers who attended three other schools that are now defunct including Westwood College, ITT Technical Institute, and the Minnesota School of Business, The Hill reported. Students who attended all three colleges also claimed that the institutions misled them with false information. For ITT in particular, students attending the school’s nursing program said they were improperly instructed about the accreditation of the nursing associate degree program. According to The Hill, the school told prospective students that “the nursing program had already or would shortly obtain accreditation…, but ITT failed to meet standards to obtain the necessary programmatic accreditation for years.” 

The Minnesota School of Business was accused of fraud after it promoted its criminal justice program as a way for students to obtain accreditation to become police and probation officers. However, the school never actually had the proper accreditation and certification in place for students, making it difficult for some alums to obtain employment.

Similarly, students at Westwood College also accused the school of doling out misleading information about the salary potential upon graduation. They also made claims that the college falsely notified them about transferring credits.

As MADAMENOIRE previously reported, back in December, the Biden Administration revealed that they helped to cancel a whopping “$12.5 billion in student loan debt for about 640,000 borrowers” since entering office. However, much of that student loan forgiveness has gone to specific groups of people including the disabled, or for students whose campuses’ closed due to unforeseeable circumstances, like the pandemic. Many students around the U.S. are urging the administration to issue widespread student loan debt cancellation, which would help billions of students who are drowning in debt and who may not be eligible under the current relief programs stipulations.

 

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