An advocacy group, Veterans Education Success, has been pushing regulators on issues at the center of the Ed Department’s warning. The group published a report Wednesday highlighting complaints from military veteran students who attended several for-profit universities, both currently operating and closed. Complaints listed included students having loans they never knew of or authorized.
The group said it provided the report to the Ed Department privately in January and that department officials said the research led to them examining the issue. The Ed Department did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Veterans Education Success on Wednesday called the Ed Department’s action a good first step.
“We thank FSA for warning schools to stop tricking veterans into loans they didn’t want or need,” the group’s president, Carrie Wofford, said in a statement. “This is the single top issue we hear about in the thousands of veteran complaints we receive. Veterans who have the GI Bill are understandably angry when they find out that a school took out student loans in their name without their knowledge.”
The group also said the Ed Department should rename master promissory notes — legal documents students sign promising to repay their loans — to make clearer their purpose. It suggested calling them student loan agreements.
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