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
Muddied Picture for Defrauded Borrowers | Inside Higher Ed
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were able to pass a measure last week expressing opposition to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s borrower-defense rule. But because of politics and both ongoing and upcoming legal battles, the vote did little to clear up what will happen to students who are asking for their loans to be discharged because they were defrauded by colleges.
House votes to make it easier for scammed borrowers to cancel student loans | MarketWatch
Federal lawmakers voted Thursday to block Education Department rules that would make it harder for scammed students to wipe away loans from shuttered schools. The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure that would halt rules slated for implementation in July and reinstate Obama administration-era regulations on how to deal with the debt loads of students with useless degrees.
Former Students of Defunct ITT Tech Receive $95.1 Million Loan Relief | Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—The Education Department is providing loan relief to some 7,800 former students of the ITT Technical Institute, with debts totaling $95.1 million being forgiven by the government years after the giant for-profit school chain closed. The department said that it has identified 7,878 former students of ITT Tech as eligible for a program in which loans are discharged automatically within three years of a school closure. Of those borrowers who attended the school, 7,697 had received loan forgiveness as of Jan. 3.
Get Help
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.
Sign Up for Email Updates
Join our email list to get the latest updates on our cases.