(Hill) — The Education Department on Tuesday announced plans to unload $3.9 billion in federal student loans for 208,000 borrowers in the latest round of relief.
The bureau said the discharge will apply to any remaining federal student loans borrowers received to attend ITT Technical Institute, which closed in September 2016, from January 2005 onwards.
“This includes borrowers who have not yet filed a borrower defense for discharge. These borrowers will have the federal student loans they received to attend ITT without any further action on their part,” the agency announced Tuesday morning.
The move follows previous decisions by the administration to approve loan discharge for borrowers who will attend ITT after the office said the institute was found to have “engaged in widespread and pervasive misrepresentations related to students’ ability to obtain a job or to transfer credits”.
The department also accused the institute of “lying about the programmatic accreditation of ITT’s associate degree in nursing,” citing extensive internal records, testimony from staff and firsthand accounts from borrowers.
“It’s time for student borrowers to no longer bear the burden of ITT’s years of lies and false promises,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Evidence shows that for years, ITT leaders have intentionally misled students about the quality of their programs in order to profit from federal student loan programs without regard to the hardship this would cause thing.”
“The Biden-Harris administration will continue to support borrowers who have been defrauded by their colleges while working to strengthen oversight and enforcement to protect today’s students from similar fraud and abuse,” he added.
Overall, the Biden administration approved nearly $32 billion in student loan relief for more than 1.6 million borrowers. However, this waiver has only been green-lighted for certain borrowers, including those participating in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, borrowers with total and permanent disabilities, and those found to have been misled by their institutions.
The Biden administration has faced pressure from progressives and student loan advocates for a broader exemption, especially as a current pause on federal student loan repayments is set to expire at the end of August.
The White House has indicated that another decision on student loans could come later this month after reports have surfaced Earlier this year, President Biden weighed a plan to offer $10,000 in student debt forgiveness for some borrowers.
But the officials have the mother held when it comes to publicly sharing details of his plans.