About the Project
The Project on Predatory Student Lending is the leading legal organization representing students against the predatory for-profit college industry and the government policies that enable the industry to exploit the promise of higher education to cheat student borrowers and taxpayers. It has been helping students fight for justice since 2012.
The Project represents hundreds of thousands of former students across the country and has won landmark cases to protect borrower rights, recover money owed, and cancel fraudulent debt. Its ongoing cases hold predatory colleges accountable and force the Department of Education to act on behalf of students and stop protecting this insidious industry.
The Project is part of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, 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 and advocacy organizations.
A Predatory Industry
For decades, the predatory for-profit college industry has exploited the promise of higher education, at the expense of students who are trying to build a better life. The industry specifically targets low-income students, people of color, single parents, and veterans.
The industry recruits students with lies and false promises of well-paying jobs and meaningful careers. One school told prospective students it placed 70 to 99 percent of students in jobs, when the reality was only 20 to 30 percent of students got jobs.
Instead of providing the quality programs promised, these companies invest almost no money into meaningful career training. In one study, less than 25% of for-profit colleges’ revenue went to expenses related to education. The majority goes to marketing and advertising, executive compensation, and shareholder profit.
As a result, students are left with mountains of debt and without the means to pay for it. For-profit colleges account for 13% of the student population, but 33% of federal loan defaults. And 98% of all student loan cancellation applications sent to the federal government in 2016 and 2017 were due to fraudulent for-profit colleges.
Government funding and policies intended to help people improve their lives are instead enabling this industry to cheat students. The for-profit college industry is among the most heavily tax subsidized of any private sector, taking more than $30 billion in taxpayer money each year in the form of federal student aid.
The Department of Education alone has the power and authority to stop the flow of federal money to these schools, but it has not. The industry and the interests it serves are powerful, and gets its way in Washington.
The Department of Education has repeatedly sided with the industry, and against students and taxpayers. It continues to broker student loans for these companies and collect fraudulent student loans, while delaying and rewriting borrower defense rules that stop schools from using forced arbitration.
The Project’s landmark cases help students defend their rights and stop this predatory industry from cheating students and taxpayers.
Toby Merrill
Director
Toby Merrill
Director
Toby founded the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2012 as a Skadden Fellow. In addition to representing borrowers with debt from for-profit colleges in a variety of actions, she has twice represented legal aid providers and their clients in the U.S. Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking sessions, by which the Department promulgates new student loan regulations, and was a member of the advisory council on Private Occupational Schools to the Massachusetts Division of Professional Licensure. She was previously a law clerk for the Honorable Janet C. Hall of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. She received her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, and holds a B.A. from Yale. She is a clinical instructor and lecturer at Harvard Law School.
Eileen Connor
Legal Director
Eileen Connor
Director of Litigation
Eileen Connor joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2016. Previously, she was a Senior Staff Attorney in the Special Litigation Unit of the New York Legal Assistance Group, where she was counsel on multiple consumer class-action lawsuits concerning student loan debt, and a founder of NYLAG’s For-Profit School Project. Prior to joining NYLAG, she was a John J. Gibbons Fellow in Constitutional and Public Interest Law at Gibbons P.C., and a staff attorney at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco. Eileen has twice represented legal aid providers and their clients in the U.S. Department of Education’s negotiated rulemaking sessions, by which the Department promulgates new student loan regulations. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and B.A. from Brown University. She is a clinical instructor and lecturer at Harvard Law School.
Kate Manning Kennedy
Senior Advisor
Kate Manning Kennedy
Senior Advisor
Kate Manning Kennedy joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending as senior advisor in 2018. Previously, Kate was a strategic communications consultant where she designed and executed national communications campaigns for nonprofit clients. Her work included strategic planning and goal setting, message development, media relations, external stakeholder engagement, partnership development, and internal communications. Prior to consultancy, Kate held senior communications positions at organizations including Social Finance, Inc., The Glover Park Group, and Fidelity Investments. Kate received her B.A. from Fairfield University.
Deanne Loonin
Attorney
Deanne Loonin
Attorney
Deanne Loonin joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2016. Previously, Deanne founded and directed the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. She is the primary author of the first five editions of NCLC’s Student Loan Law treatise and numerous policy papers and reports. She created and maintains the Student Loan Borrower Assistance website. Deanne has advocated for low-income student loan borrowers before Congress, many states, and federal administrative agencies, including U.S. Department of Education negotiated rulemaking sessions, and in other forums. Prior to joining NCLC, Deanne was an attorney at Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles. She holds a J.D. from Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard.
Jesus Martinez
Paralegal Advocate
Jesus Martinez
Paralegal Advocate
Jesus joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2018. Prior to joining the Project, Jesus served in ESL high school classrooms as an AmeriCorps Member for City Year Boston. Jesus connected with Spanish-speaking immigrants and assisted in developing students' academic and nonacademic skills. He has also helped asylum-seekers gain pro bono representation through experiences with Human Rights First and Refugees Welcome, non-profit organizations that work towards providing resources to underrepresented individuals. He holds a B.A. from Ithaca College.
Victoria Roytenberg
Attorney
Victoria Reytenberg
Attorney
Victoria Roytenberg joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2016. Previously, Victoria was a public defender at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, where she represented indigent clients who were charged with criminal offenses. Victoria received her J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law, where she was a staff member of the CUNY Law Review, a student clinician in the Adult Defender Clinic, and defended students facing long-term exclusion from New York City public schools through the Suspension Representation Project. Prior to law school, Victoria worked as a paralegal at The Legal Aid Society in the Juvenile Rights Practice, and as a legal assistant at the Central American Solidarity Association of Maryland. She holds a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Eric Schmidt
Attorney
Eric Schmidt
Attorney
Eric Schmidt joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2019. Previously, he worked at the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office as a Special Services Attorney with the Division of Law. There, he assisted the Bureau of Securities in litigation related to the 2007 financial crisis and was also assigned to the Government and Healthcare Fraud Section, where he investigated Medicaid fraud and worked on consumer complaints and false claims actions. Prior to graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 2015, Eric worked for the Hon. ALJ Ziedah Diata at the NYS Dept. of State, as well as the Hon. Joan A. Madden of the NYS Supreme Court. Eric received his B.A. in History and Journalism from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.
Joe Sherlock
Paralegal Advocate
Joe Sherlock
Paralegal Advocate
Joe joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in early 2019. Previously, he served as a Field Organizer for Congressman Seth Moulton and as an educator with Teach For America. He taught 5th and 6th grade social studies in New Orleans, Louisiana from 2016-2018. In college, Joe was Campus Coordinator with the Maine Volunteer Lawyers Project, assisting low-income residents of Maine with civil legal cases. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College.
Kyra Taylor
Attorney
Kyra Taylor
Attorney
Kyra Taylor joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2018. Previously, Kyra worked as a fellow at Tycko & Zavareei LLP, a plaintiffs’ side class action law firm, and Public Justice, a public interest impact litigation and appellate organization. Kyra graduated from Berkeley Law in 2016. Kyra was the co-director of the Civil Rights Outreach Project, a student legal services organization, where she provided legal education and services to the Muslim community in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was involved in a member of numerous legal journals and student organizations, including competing in the 2015 Jessup International Moot Court Competition. Before law school, Kyra was an elementary school teacher in Louisiana and New York City. Kyra received her B.A. in English, cum laude, from Temple University.
Emmanuelle Verdieu
Attorney and Fellow
Emmanuelle Verdieu
Attorney and Fellow
Emmanuelle Verdieu joined the Project on Predatory Student Lending in 2018. She received her law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, where she was an Associate Editor of the BYU Journal of Public Law, BYU Trial Advocacy Team Member, and Co-Vice President of the Black Law Student Association. During law school, Emmanuelle was a legal intern with the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office in the Consumer Protection Division, Bowmans in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Utah County Attorney's Office. Prior to law school, Emmanuelle interned with the Boston Branch of the NAACP advocating for students, parents, and teachers in Boston Public Schools. Emmanuelle holds a B.A. in Crime and Justice Studies, magna cum laude, from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Lindsey Withem
Project Manager
Lindsey Withem
Project Manager
Lindsey Withem joined the Legal Services Center in 2017 as the Project Manager for the Project on Predatory Student Lending. Prior to working at the Legal Services Center, Lindsey worked as a Compliance Officer at the Massachusetts’s Institute of Technology. While working at MIT, she developed best practices to ensure compliance with federal, state, and institutional financial aid regulations. Earlier in her career, she held multiple positions in higher education accreditation in Washington D.C. Lindsey holds a B.A. in Art History from James Madison University.
Join Our Team
The Project on Predatory Student Lending looks for talented professionals to join our team of passionate advocates. We also seek outstanding candidates for summer internships and fellowships.
Advisory Board
The Project on Predatory Student Lending Advisory Board supports the Project team, helping us navigate opportunities and challenges. With these partnerships, we believe that a future without predatory student loan debt is possible and we will work together to meet the challenges ahead.