Never mind the education, just pay up

Speaking of Corinthian Colleges…the Post reported last year:

Nearly 80,000 students of defunct for-profit giant Corinthian Colleges are facing some form of debt collection, even though the U.S. Department of Education unearthed enough evidence of fraud to forgive their student loans, according to an investigation by the staff of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Before it shut down last year, Corinthian, which ran Everest Institute, Wyotech and Heald College, became an example of the worst practices in the for-profit education sector, including high loan defaults and dubious programs. Amid allegations of deceptive marketing and lying to the government about its graduation rates, Corinthian lost its access to federal funds in 2014, forcing the company to sell or close its schools.

If its marketing is deceptive, then it should be giving refunds, not setting collection agencies on students.

On Thursday, Warren sent a letter urging Education Secretary John B. King Jr. to provide the immediate debt relief that Corinthian students are entitled to under federal law. The department has broad authority to cancel federal student loans when colleges violate students’ rights and state law, exactly what education officials accused Corinthian of doing. Yet the agency continues to collect on debt owed by tens of thousands of people eligible for forgiveness.

That was September 2016, so it was Obama’s Education Secretary, not Trump’s.

“It is unconscionable that instead of helping these borrowers, vast numbers of Corinthian victims are currently being hounded by the department’s debt collectors — many having their credit slammed, their tax refunds seized, their Social Security and Earned Income Tax Credit payments reduced, or wages garnished — all to pay fraudulent debts,” Warren wrote to King.

All of those borrowers attended Corinthian when education officials discovered the school committed widespread fraud by lying about its job placement rates, making a clear case for their loans to be discharged under a process known as borrower defense to repayment, Warren said. Anyone who can show a school used illegal or deceptive tactics to persuade them to borrow money for college can file a defense claim. Just 23,185 former Corinthian students had filed claims as of June, and just 3,787 of them have been approved.

And the rest? Still being fleeced.

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