Americans are flooding the government with appeals to have their student loans forgiven on the grounds that schools deceived them with false promises of a well-paying career — part of a growing protest against years of surging college costs, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In the past six months, more than 7,500 borrowers owing $164 million have applied to have their student debt expunged under an obscure federal law that had been applied only in three instances before last year. The law forgives debt for borrowers who prove their schools used illegal tactics to recruit them, such as by lying about their graduates’ earnings. The U.S. Education Department has already agreed to cancel nearly $28 million of that debt for 1,300 former students of Corinthian Colleges — the for-profit chain that liquidated in bankruptcy last year. The department has indicated that many more will likely get forgiveness. Read more. (Subscription required.)
For further analysis of student loan debt and bankruptcy, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Graduating with Debt: Student Loans under the Bankruptcy Code.
