Update in Sweet v. DeVos:
Court preliminarily approves settlement agreement and orders that notice be sent to class members.
About the Predatory For-Profit College Industry
For decades, the predatory for-profit college industry has exploited the promise of higher education. The industry specifically targets low-income students, people of color, immigrants, veterans, and others trying to build a better life for themselves, their families and their communities. Many are the first in their family to attend college. This industry draws nearly all its revenue from taxpayer dollars and relies on deceptive and relentless sales tactics to recruit students, leaving them worse off than they started. The Project’s landmark cases on behalf of student borrowers work to end these predatory practices and hold those who enable them accountable.
“Everything that the school promised, turned out to be false... Sanford-Brown Institute has left me and many other students with mountains of debt and no career path to dig ourselves out. Making this worse is that our own government has failed to step in to protect and help students.”
“[The Department of Education] should be protecting the students, because students were led to believe they were protected. And they are not, they are protecting...for-profit schools."
“I hope these rulings remind the Department of its obligation to its citizens who are the future of this country, and that it will start to act in the interest of students instead of for-profit institutions.”
-Meaghan, former student at New England Institute of Art
News
Education Dept. Left Social Security Numbers of Thousands of Borrowers Exposed for Months | Washington Post
The Education Department left the Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of people seeking student debt relief unprotected and susceptible to a data breach for at least six months, according to people familiar with the matter. Angela Morabito, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, acknowledged the error but called it “nonevent.” The data was “was on the department’s secure, internal server, and there is no indication anyone outside the department could have had access to it,” she said. “There is also no indication anyone inside the department handled this file improperly.”
Judge Orders Betsy DeVos to Cancel 7,200 Scammed Borrowers’ Student Loans | MarketWatch
During most of the Trump administration’s tenure, the U.S. Department of Education, led by Betsy DeVos, has worked to limit student debt cancellation for borrowers who say they were scammed by their schools. The agency scored a win in that effort Friday, when Democrats failed to muster enough votes to override President Trump’s veto of a bill that would have overturned the Department’s approach to student debt cancellation under what’s known as the “borrower defense” rule.
Borrower-Defense Veto Override Fails | Inside Higher Ed
Opponents of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s rule making it more difficult for those who have been defrauded by their colleges to have their student loans forgiven are looking to the courts to block the measure after suffering a defeat in Congress Friday. In a victory for DeVos, the Democratic House failed to override President Donald Trump’s veto of a bill that would have undone DeVos’s controversial borrower-defense rule.
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If you attended a for-profit college and need legal help with student debt problems, contact us by leaving a message on our hotline, 617-390-2669, or filling out our online intake form.
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