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."
“It's not like I got 30 percent of the education. I got zero percent of the education that they offered."
-Amanda, former Everest College student on Department of Education's partial denial rule
News
Despite Court Rulings, DeVos Leaves Obama-Era Rules Unenforced | Wall Street Journal
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s two-year effort to chisel away at the Obama administration’s education agenda has repeatedly been blocked by federal courts. Now, she is trying a different tactic: not enforcing the rules.
Education Department Has Stalled on Debt Relief for Defrauded Students | New York Times
The Education Department failed to approve a single application for federal student loan relief in the second half of last year, according to new department data that signals that students who claim they were cheated by their colleges cannot count on help from Washington anytime soon.
Thousands of students who say they were scammed by their schools applied for debt relief — they’re still waiting | MarketWatch
Applications for debt relief from students who say they’ve been scammed by their schools have been languishing at the Department of Education. That’s according to data from the agency requested and published late last week by the office of Senator Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee, which oversees the Department.
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