November 23, 2020
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Great news for veterans who were cheated or misled by their school!
The U.S. Education Department has voluntarily agreed to stop denying “borrower defense” applications from students who were lied to or cheated by their school. This came after a federal court threatened to halt all denials and ordered the Education Department to notify the court two weeks before issuing any more denials. The Education Deparment agreed to put all the loans into forbearance for borrower defense applicants—even those who had received denials—until the litigation ends.
This is great news for the thousands of veterans we serve. We have helped countless veterans apply for “borrower defense” on their federal student loans because their colleges lied to them or misled them. Many of our veterans got denials (or rejections) from the Education Department. But recently the federal court said those denials were unfair, “perfunctory,” and not justified. We agree!
“One hundred sixty thousand student-loan borrowers, defrauded by for-profit schools and saddled with debilitating debt, have asked the Secretary of Education for the relief which Congress has provided,” the federal Court wrote. “It’s no wonder borrowers are confused. The Secretary’s perfunctory denial notice does not explain the evidence reviewed or the law applied. It provides no analysis. And, the borrower’s path forward rings disturbingly Kafkaesque.”
Students in the case are represented by Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending and the Housing and Economic Rights Advocates. For more information from the Project on Predatory Lending, click here.
Also, there is some recent great news for Maryland students who went to Brightwood College. The Maryland Attorney General announced that any students who owe loans to Brightwood would have their loans cancelled because the school lied to students. Brightwood made students believe that going to their school would help them get a better career, when they were really paying overpriced tuition for a low quality education.
Victories like these are only possible when students come forward and complain about what happened to them at their school. More than 500 students joined a Court hearing to tell the Judge that the Education Department’s denials were unfair. And the Court listened. Speaking up makes a difference!
If your school did something that wasn’t right, we want to hear about it! Please email us and we will make sure your voice is heard and that schools are held responsible for what they are doing! [email protected].