As the named plaintiff in Sweet v. Cardona, Theresa Sweet has been in the fight for justice since the very beginning. Upon learning about our proposed settlement with the Department of Education — automatically approving the borrower defense applications of over 200,000 borrowers and canceling an estimated $6 BILLION — she had a lot to say. Read about Theresa’s journey to #sweetrelief.    If you had asked me on the day I graduated from college how I felt about my future, I think that you would have been dismayed at the answer. Instead of feeling hopeful, instead of feeling ..read more

In 2015, when Vice President Kamala Harris was California’s Attorney General, she found the Corinthian College chain guilty of fraud — and the US Department of Education agreed. Flash forward to last week, seven years later, when VP Harris joined the Department of Education to finally announce that it would cancel all federal student loans from Corinthian Colleges — relieving more than 560,000 student borrowers of over $5.8 billion in Corinthian debt. It was a victorious day for our clients who never knew when this day would come. For over seven years, these borrowers fought tirelessly to Canc ..read more

Last month, we released “Dreams Destroyed: How ITT Technical Institute Defrauded a Generation of Students” — a report featuring hundreds of pages of evidence documenting ITT Tech’s massive scale fraud. Nearly 200 pages, it’s a deep dive into the many ways ITT systematically defrauded borrowers, including false promises of gainful employment, harmful and predatory enrollment practices, and a blatant prioritization of profit over education. The report details unequivocally that ITT systematically and brazenly lied to students in order to profit from their federal financial aid. The fact that any ..read more

In just three months of 2022, we’ve seen notable progress in the fight towards holding predatory for-profit colleges and those who enable them accountable. From a scathing report detailing ITT’s decades of wrongdoing, to students in Sweet v. Cardona calling out the growing borrower defense backlog, borrowers are not letting up and keeping the pressure on the Education Department’s arbitrarily long and winding road to justice. Proof of ITT’s Massive-Scale Fraud and Abuse The Department of Education has all the evidence it needs to cancel all ITT debt – not just a small portion. Last month ..read more

“It’s overwhelming to contemplate the sheer number of people who could have been spared pain, suffering, and insurmountable debt with a functioning gainful employment rule.”   One topic that came up again and again during the Department of Education’s February Negotiated Rulemaking sessions was gainful employment of for-profit college graduates – or the lack thereof. For-profit colleges are notorious for making false promises. They lure prospective students in with promises of an incredible education, a fulfilling career, and exemplary graduation rates, but the reality couldn’t be farther ..read more

It’s no secret that the Department of Education has repeatedly let defrauded student borrowers down. Over the course of multiple administrations and several years, the Department has sat on borrower defense applications, issued mass denials, and refused to cancel the debt of all those who are owed relief, time and time again. And while some student borrowers have been lucky enough to get their loans discharged through the borrower defense process, hundreds of thousands more are equally owed justice. Part of the problem is the arbitrary process the Department of Education has used to determine ..read more

The following is a transcript from the Department of Education’s Negotiated Rulemaking session on January 18, 2022. During the public comment period, students are encouraged to share their comments on their experiences. Here is Myrna’s story. Hello, My name is Myrna Figueroa. I am a disabled veteran and I was robbed by Walden University. I am calling into today because even though I was able to get my loans discharge through disability for my federal loans, I do not feel like justice has been served. Walden lied to me, took advantage of me, left me with nothing and the Department of Education ..read more

2021 ushered in a new Presidential administration and promises of long-awaited justice for defrauded borrowers. We are thrilled to share our clients’ hard-fought victories of loan cancellation, yet the fight is not over for tens of thousands of clients still waiting. Their voices are more powerful than ever. At every opportunity, our clients have continued to show up to raise awareness and to hold the Department accountable to their rights under the law. One thing was made consistently clear throughout the year: borrowers will not stop fighting for the relief and justice they and others are ow ..read more

The Department of Education’s Negotiated Rulemaking committee concluded its second week of sessions on November 5, 2021, digging deeper into topics including the borrower defense process. This followed the first session, held the first week of October, which saw for-profit college borrowers come out in force— flooding the public comment sessions and fiercely demanding that their experiences and voices be reflected in this process. It was a powerful display of what is at stake and how the broken borrower defense process has devastated so many lives. But if anyone thought these borrowe ..read more

Between October 4 to October 8, the Department of Education held their second Negotiation Rulemaking, or NegReg, session of the year. NegReg is a process in which stakeholders—including students, institutional representatives, and state and nonprofit enforcement agencies—collaborate with the Department on how to improve policies that impact students. This year, the broken borrower defense process is one of the top areas of discussion. One would think that the Department would want to include a representative for those who experienced this process firsthand in the discussion. And there are plen ..read more