In response to the threat of a subpoena that was going to be sent to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the U.S. Department of Education will be providing Representative Bobby Scott, the Chairman of the U.S. House Education & Labor Committee, records detailing why the Department of Education has not forgiven thousands of borrowers who were defrauded at for-profit colleges.
According to a provision under the Higher Education Act called ‘Borrower Defense‘ borrowers can, “Seek loan forgiveness if a college or university misled them, or engaged in other misconduct in violation of certain state laws”.
The head of the Institute for College Access & Success James Kvaal went on to state that,”If a student takes out a federal loan and that loan is connected with fraud, deceptive statements, illegal conduct, then the student has a right to get that loan forgiven”.
Betsy had said last week that the Department of Education,”Is committed to holding institutions and accreditors accountable to the students they serve. In this instance, students were failed and deserve to be made whole”. Betsy then went on to forgive 1500 borrowers who had been defrauded.
There is still a sense that not enough has been done and all eligible borrowers still want their claims to be processed fairly.
Since June of 2019 over 200K students had been waiting for their claims to be processed under ‘Borrower Defense’.