For Immediate Release: August 27, 2021

Contact: Carter Dougherty at (202) 251-6700 or carter@ourfinancialsecurity.org

Department of Education Announces they will Extend the Closed School Discharge Window for Some ITT Tech Borrowers

Americans for Financial Reform welcomes the Department of Education’s announcement that they will extend the closed school discharge window for students who attended ITT Tech back to 2008. This is an important step to protect students from continuing a school whose business model was entirely dependent on government support.

ITT has long abused both students and our public funds through their misconduct. Over the years, they have faced numerous lawsuits and investigations by regulators and law enforcement, including a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud, and a lawsuit by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for predatory lending.

This step with regard to ITT students is needed and welcome, but it must not be the end of the story. We continue to call on the Administration to act on broad student debt cancellation, a policy supported by more than 415 organizations. The Department has a once in a generation opportunity with the federal student loan collection machine turned off to address problems that have been plaguing us for decades. There are over 4.4 million borrowers who’ve been in repayment for more than twenty years. In the 25 years that Income-Driven Repayment Plans have existed, only 32 borrowers had their loans cancelled.  Eliminating federal student loan debt through broad based cancellation would be a powerful way to make progress and bring relief to millions left out of the K-shaped recovery, where the gains have largely gone to the wealthy.

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