department of education Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Americans for Financial Reform

AFR Statement: AFR Urges the Senate to Reject Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary

“It is crucial that any nominee for Education Secretary of the Department of Education not only affirm the need to enforce existing rules that seek to protect both students and taxpayers from fraud, but also clearly articulate plans to rapidly pursue additional automatic group discharges. Betsy DeVos has done neither. Americans for Financial Reform urges the members of the Senate to reject Betsy DeVos’s nomination as Secretary of the Department of Education.”

AFR Statement: AFR applauds automatic debt discharges at ACI, calls for further action

Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) applauds the news that the Department of Education will grant automatic discharges to all former students of American Career Institute (ACI) in Massachusetts. Before being confirmed, any nominee for Secretary of the Department of Education must clearly articulate plans to rapidly pursue additional automatic group discharges, to ensure that all Americans are protected from future exploitation of taxpayer-backed loans by predatory schools.

AFR Statement: Final Borrower Defense to Repayment Regulations

AFR welcomes the news that the Department of Education has finalized a rule that will prohibit the use of forced arbitration at schools. We hope that as the Department moves forward to procedural guidance and to enforcement that it does everything possible to ensure that no defrauded borrower be left buried in debt from a school that broke the law, betrayed its students, and cheated taxpayers.

AFR Statement: Education Department Must Immediately Cease Collections on Defrauded Corinthian Students, Cancel their Debts without Application

Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) is dismayed to learn that the Department of Education is still actively collecting on nearly 80,000 former Corinthian students. These actions run counter to the requests of AFR and a coalition of advocates led by the National Consumer Law Center

Letter to Regulators: AFR Calls on the Dept of ED to Make Wronged Students Whole in the Borrower Defense Rule

AFR submitted comments to the Department of Education suggesting ways to ensure that their borrower defense proposal can truly provide a fair and transparent processes for students seeking debt relief following illegal acts by their schools.

Letter to Regulators: Over 10,000 AFR Members call on Dept of ED to Protect Scammed Students

Over 10,000 members of Americans for Financial Reform signed a petition calling on the Department to provide full loan relief to defrauded students, provide automatic loan cancellation when there is sufficient evidence of a school’s wrongdoing, not impose time limits on relief for defrauded borrowers, and close gaping loopholes allowing unscrupulous schools to prevent injured students from having their day in court.

AFR Statement: The Department of Education’s Proposed Rule on Borrower Defense to Repayment

“For years, advocates have urged the Department of Education to relieve the staggering debt of students who attended for-profit colleges like Corinthian which broke the law. Today, the Department released a forward-looking proposal outlining how students who were victims of illegal acts by their school may pursue a ‘borrower defense to repayment,’ or cancellation of the debt on their federal student loans. We look forward to working with the Department to improve the final proposal so that all students victimized by unlawful and deceptive conduct receive every penny of relief they deserve.”

AFR Statement: Department of Education must expedite and broaden relief to Corinthian students

“We join with the advocates, lawmakers, and law enforcement officials who have all called on the Department use its legal authority to discharge debts of students covered by the Department’s enforcement actions without further delay and without requiring each borrower to make an individual application.”

Letter to Regulators: AFR, 34 Orgs Press for Automatic Relief to Groups of Students Victimized by Predatory Practices

“We are deeply concerned by the slow pace and small number of discharges that have been processed and that many of the Department’s proposals in the current negotiated rulemaking process move in the wrong direction, reducing eligibility for relief, pitting students against schools, and creating unnecessary burdens on students and the Department.”

AFR in the News: There’s a newish cop on the beat as Department of Education launches enforcement unit (Washington Post)

“The department must move quickly to discharge the debt of all Corinthian students,” said Alexis Goldstein, senior policy analyst at the progressive Americans for Financial Reform. “Hundreds of thousands of borrowers from Corinthian remain on the hook for federal student loans. … despite the fact that the illegal actions identified in department enforcement actions were endemic throughout the entire chain.”