About the Project
The Project is part of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School (LSC), a community law office and clinical teaching site of the law school. Clinical students join the Project’s staff to litigate cases on behalf of clients, in partnership with community-based organizations and advocacy organizations.
Featured Cases
Villalba et al. v. ITT
Class action by former ITT Tech students in ITT’s bankruptcy proceedings. Students are the true creditors of ITT and debts from ITT are invalid.
Colon v. DeVos
Asks a court to declare that student loan debt from Sanford-Brown Institute, a for-profit college determined to have violated New York state consumer protection laws, is invalid and not enforceable.
Calvillo Manriquez v. DeVos
Class action challenging the federal government’s failure to discharge tens of thousands of student loans from Corinthian College discharge applicants whom the government already deemed entitled to discharges.
About the Predatory For-Profit College Industry
For decades, the predatory for-profit college industry has exploited the promise of higher education by perpetrating a massive fraud on students trying to build a better life. The industry targets low-income students, students of color, immigrants, the unemployed, and veterans. Many are the first in their families 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.
“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."
News
Ex-Corinthian Students Look To Bar Fed Loan Collections | Law360
The U.S. Department of Education flouted federal law on agency rulemaking and violated the Privacy Act when it suddenly changed its student loan forgiveness policy, a putative class of former students of the now-defunct Corinthian College told a California federal judge Monday, arguing that without a temporary bar on the new policy, they’d be forced to choose between life necessities and loan defaults.
Hearing Could Determine Fate of Corinthian College Student Loan Debt | CBS Los Angeles
Thousands of ex-Corinthian Colleges students are anxiously awaiting the outcome of a Monday court hearing that could determine whether they still have to pay the loans they took out to attend the now-closed, for-profit colleges.
Feds Push to Collect From Defrauded Corinthian Students | Courthouse News Service
A Justice Department lawyer on Monday defended cutting loan debt relief for some 100,000 students defrauded by Corinthian Colleges, arguing the Department of Education never promised to wipe out all of their debt.
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