Thousands of students who were defrauded by Corinthian Colleges, the shuttered for-profit provider that oversaw hundreds of campuses across the country, could receive billions in debt forgiveness from the federal government, the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday.
Corinthian Colleges filed for
"When Americans invest their time, money and effort to gain new skills, they have a right to expect they'll get an education that leads to a better life for them and their families," Secretary of Education John King said. "Corinthian was more worried about profits than about students' lives." Last October, a federal judge in Illinois
Corinthian, which once operated more than 120 schools with more than 110,000 students across North America under the Everest, Wyotech and Heald brands, filed for bankruptcy in May 2015 in the largest failure of a college chain in U.S. history. Eleven state Attorneys General that month sent a letter to Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan
The letter urged the Education Department to provide debt relief to students who do not qualify for a "closed school" discharge but were harmed by misconduct by the school. The letter asserted that such students should be permitted to raise Corinthian’s misconduct as a defense to repayment of their student loans. The letter further urges the Education Department to provide clear guidance to students on how to assert a claim for relief. The letter was co-signed by the Attorneys General of Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, New York and Oregon.
In February 2015, the government
Corinthian then
