FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MARCH 18, 2021

Contact: Alexis Goldstein, alexis@ourfinancialsecurity.org

Statement of Alexis Goldstein, Senior Policy Analyst, Americans for Financial Reform:

It is good to see the Department of Education finally take significant steps to fulfill the promise then-Secretary Arne Duncan made in 2015, that defrauded student loan borrowers would get “every penny of relief” they are afforded under the law. 

It should not have taken so many years, so much tenacity from attorneys defending these defrauded borrowers, and the resilience of thousands of former for-profit college students who were not willing to give up, to get here. We applaud this relief today, while looking forward to the Department making whole all the rest of the hundreds of thousands of borrowers whose schools broke the law. These borrowers cannot get back the years of their lives that they wasted on a scam education, nor the costs from the damage to their credit. But at least today, they will be able to begin anew, and move ahead without the crushing burden these debts created.

We look forward to the Department continuing to use all its legal authorities to provide relief, including by cancelling federal student debt through executive action.