California Consumer Protection Laws Violation
Of the more than 50,000 students who are awaiting approval of their student loan forgiveness claims, almost 13,000 of them live in California. The students had attended the now-defunct Corinthian College, a for-profit university that collapsed in 2015. The college was found by courts to have violated California’s consumer protection laws.
Department of Education Changes
This week marked the beginning of negotiations to change federal rules that protected students from fraud by colleges and universities. The current roles that were enacted in 2016 by the Obama administrations gave students more recourse in obtaining loan forgiveness if the schools they attended violated federal law. The current Secretary of Education Betsy Devos, who was also named in the lawsuit, froze these revisions in the law in order to rewrite the rules.
Overall, the Attorney General of California that brought for the suit is claiming that U.S. Education officials are illegally delaying regulations meant to protect students from misconduct. He mentions that the “department’s unjustified failure to expeditiously grant this promised relief is outrageous and immoral – and it violates the Administrative Procedures Act”. The entire complaint can be found here. California isn’t alone either. Attorneys general in 18 different states, as well as, the District of Columbia have also sued to enforce the “defense to repayment” rule. The current White House administration has promised to resume processing the stalled claims “as soon as possible”.