US to Free 208k Students Who Attended ITT Technical Institute From $3.9 Billion Debt

208,000 students in the United States who have attended the ITT Technical Institute (ITT) since January 1, 2015, have been freed from the obligation to return the money they borrowed through federal loans, even if they have not applied for debt forgiveness.

The move was announced upon the completion of an investigation of the Administration regarding ITT, in which it found that the institution had intentionally misinformed students on their ability to get a job or transfer credits and lied to them about the programmatic accreditation of its nursing associate degree.

The cancellation of these debts has been warned by Erudera.com previously at the end of last June.

Commenting on the decision, the US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said that it is time for former students of ITT to stop suffering because of the lies and false promises that they were served by the institution they trusted.

“The evidence shows that for years, ITT’s leaders intentionally misled students about the quality of their programs in order to profit off federal student loan programs, with no regard for the hardship this would cause,” Secretary Cardona said.

Through a statement published on August 16 in this regard, the US Department of Education has announced that it has send a formal notification to DeVry University informing the same that it is obliged to pay millions of dollars for approved borrower defense applications, while also giving it the chance to present its case why it should not pay these liabilities, Erudera.com reports.

At the same time, the Department approved the discharge of almost 100 borrowers who enrolled in the Medical Assistant or Medical Billing & Coding Program at Kaplan Career Institute’s Kenmore Square location in Massachusetts from July 1, 2011, to February 16, 2012, when the institution stopped registering new students.

Further, Secretary Cardona assured borrowers who have been cheated by their colleges and universities that the Biden-Harris Administration will continue to stand up for them while protecting current students from being deceived and abused in similar ways.

Since Biden took over the White House in January 2021, he has forgiven and canceled billions in debt owed by students. According to a statement of a top Republican in Congress given to Forbes, the president has actually canceled around $400 billion worth of student loans.

According to an analysis by Erudera.com, federal loans account for over 90 percent of student debt in the country, with another six million borrowers who have nonfederal education loans, on the other hand. The same points out that in 2020, the total amount of loan debt in the name of students reached $1.57 trillion, with over 42.9 million recipients.

>> 7.8 Million Borrowers Under 25 Have a Total Student Debt of $115.50 Billion