Americans for Financial Reform applauds the Department of Education’s final decision to de-recognize a major accreditor of for-profit colleges, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). The Department’s decision to no longer recognize ACICS is an important step toward ensuring that students and taxpayers do not bear the burden of illegal and fraudulent acts by for-profit colleges.
“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.”
“Alexis Goldstein, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, says the department has done a poor job of reaching out to Corinthian students who might be eligible for relief… ‘[T]he department should be pursuing a much more comprehensive, multi-pronged outreach strategy in order to ensure that all students victimized by Corinthian are aware of their legal right to pursue debt cancellation.’”
“This letter seeks to engage the Department of Education on developing a proactive, risk-based, student-centered strategy for dealing with companies that the Department has reason to believe may be breaking the law and putting students and taxpayers in jeopardy.”
“‘These students were playing by the rules, sacrificing to get an education and improve their own and their families’ lives,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of groups formed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. “They should not be buried in debt for a scam that the Department of Education allowed to continue, even once fraud and abuse were clear.”
“Yesterday, more than 78,000 individuals as well as 51 national and local consumer, labor, and community groups sent a clear message – exressed in a set of petitions and letters to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan – that the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) has a duty to cancel the federal student loans of all borrowers harmed by Corinthian Colleges without requiring each one to prove Corinthian’s fraud. “
“The CFPB should use the authority that it has to make sure that borrowers are treated fairly, and that they get the information they need to take advantage of any repayment plans available to them. This means that abusive, profit-increasing practices that are banned in other consumer debt industries, but are still used by companies that collect payments on private student loans, must be curbed.”
“Corinthian Colleges made many promises to its students – promises of a good education and job opportunities on the other side – but behind the slogans was an institution that churned out big profits by targeting unsuspecting, low-income students with predatory recruitment and lending practices. “
“Given the extensive evidence of widespread fraud at Corinthian Colleges, we believe all current and former students deserve federal loan discharges. We are particularly concerned that students whose entitlement to federal loan discharges is crystal clear – those recently enrolled in the 30 Corinthian campuses that closed on Monday – are being given incomplete, incorrect, and harmful information about their options from Education Department staff as well as from schools that do not have these students’ best interests in mind. “
“AFR urges swift adoption of these changes, along with further measures to deal with the burden of student loan debt. The complaint system is one of a number of places we think steps can and should be taken ahead of the deadlines laid out by the Administration. While the Department is establishing a full system for dealing with complaints, which should be comprehensive, it should partner with the CFPB so that borrowers can immediately use that process to submit complaints about federal student loans (as they already can about private loans).”