A borrower defense to repayment (“borrower defense”) allows borrowers who were misled, defrauded, or subject to illegal behavior by their school to discharge the federal student loan debt they borrowed to attend the school. Borrowers can request a discharge by submitting an application to the Department of Education (“ED”) detailing the school’s misconduct. Given recent […]

Note: There is a lot to consider when your school closes! We held a webinar to help students understand their options on August 3, 2021. You can view a recording of the webinar here.   On July 28th, Center for Excellence and Higher Education (CEHE) schools (Independence University, Stevens-Henager College, CollegeAmerica, and California College San […]

Yesterday, the Department announced an important first step toward fixing the badly broken borrower defense program by rescinding the deeply flawed and unsupported “partial relief” policy adopted by former Secretary DeVos. The Borrower Defense rules were intended to provide relief for borrowers who took on federal student loan debt to attend schools that used deceptive […]

Late last week, the House passed an amended version of the HEROES Act, which included a number of critical protections that student loan borrowers need now. Importantly, the amended bill extends the current payment suspension, stops interest from accruing on federal loans through September 2021, and extends CARES Act relief to the 9 million borrowers […]

On July 1, 2020 the Department of Education’s newest borrower defense rules went into effect and made it much harder for defrauded borrowers to get loan relief. The Department of Education falsely claimed that it needed new rules to guard against students’ “frivolous” claims, even though it provided no evidence that students were submitting frivolous […]

Today, new U.S. Department of Education (the Department) regulations will go into effect, erasing many of the protections students had against school fraud. These regulatory changes could not have come at a worse time. As students are trying to weather the economic instability caused by the coronavirus, the Department has given predatory schools the green […]