Millions of students who attend a series of non-profit Corinthian colleges will automatically receive Federal student loan cancellationThe Biden administration announced Wednesday that it aims to close one of the worst fraud cases in U.S. higher education.
Under the new measure, anyone who has participated in the now defunct chain from its founding in 1995 until its collapse in 2015 will have their federal student debt forgiven. It will write off $ 5.8 billion in debt to more than 560,000 borrowers, the largest single debt discharge in the history of the education sector, the agency said.
“As of today, every student who has been deceived, deceived and pushed into debt by Corinthian colleges has the support of the Biden-Harris administration and can be confident that their federal student loans will be waived,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. “For a very long time, he was involved in the total financial exploitation of Corinthian students and misled them into getting more and more debt to pay off promises they never kept.”
Tens of thousands of former Corinthian students had already qualified Debt cancellation, But they had to file documents and lead to an application process, which lawyers say is confusing and not widely known. Now, relief will be done automatically and Extended to additional borrowers.
Those who have the balance of their Corinthian debt will be reimbursed, education officials said. But this measure does not apply to loans that have already been paid in full.