The federal government is discharging $37 million in student loans for over 1,200 former students who attended the University of Phoenix, YahooFinance.com reported. The action applies to borrowers who enrolled in Phoenix between Sept. 21, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2014, and applied for a borrower defense loan discharge, a legal ground borrowers can take against a school that engaged in misconduct related to the loan or the educational services it provided. These borrowers will receive emails from the Department of Education by early October and no further action is needed. Any payments already made to the department on related federal student loans will be refunded. Borrowers who attended Phoenix but did not file a borrower's defense discharge will need to complete an application on the Federal Student Aid website. This discharge comes after the department reviewed evidence obtained by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in its investigation into Phoenix that resulted in a $191 million settlement in 2019.
