The Education Department will cancel federal student loans for at least 1,800 students who attended DeVry University, once one of the nation’s largest for-profit college chains, because it fraudulently lured in applicants for years with vastly inflated claims about their career prospects, the New York Times reported. While the department has stepped up its discharges of debts for students who were victimized by their schools, the decision announced yesterday is its first approval of fraud claims involving a school that is still operating. The claims approved yesterday are just the start, officials said. They want other students who attended DeVry during the time it was making its false promises to apply for relief. Between 2008 and 2015, department officials said, DeVry advertised that 90 percent of its graduates found work in their field of study within six months. In reality, only 58 percent did. School officials knew of the discrepancy and ignored complaints about it from alumni, department officials said. Until Wednesday, the department had taken action only against schools that had closed down, including large chains like Corinthian Colleges and smaller ones like the Marinello Schools of Beauty.
