Any discussion about student loan rip-offs should begin with Corinthian Colleges. The recent closure of this for-profit company left thousands of students stranded with no way to complete the education they had been promised and for which they took on crushing debt loads.
The Department of Education has announced that students who were enrolled or recently withdrew from school will be forgiven their federal loans but only if they forego credits they already earned. Students who have already graduated get no such relief. According to US News & World Report, some of the former students are also now challenging repayment of their student loans based on claims of fraud.
The closing of Corinthian Colleges brings up the issue of debt cancellation in the student loan context. If you have federal student loans, in certain circumstances such as school closings your debt can be canceled. You must be enrolled at the time of closing or have withdrawn from the school within 120 days of the closing.
Prior to the closure of Corinthian Colleges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that $480 million in loan forgiveness will be made available for students who took out Corinthian Colleges high-cost private student loans. This is highly unusual as the protections and safeguards offered for federal loans normally do not exist for private loans. Loan forgiveness and debt cancellation are rare in the private loan context. Students are ordinarily left to negotiate directly with the private lender in hopes that the payments can at least be an amount that is affordable each month.
Corinthian Colleges is the tip of the of the student loan crisis iceberg. The student loan program in this country is not serving us well and cries out for reform.
Rachel Gallegos
Lead Consumer Advocate, Steve Harvey Law