The state of California is currently suing Education Secretary Betsy Devos and the department for their failure to process over 50,000 debt relief claims — with 13,000 of them being Californian — from students who were defrauded by Corinthian Colleges schools, a for-profit educational company operating in the United States and Canada.
In June, DeVos announced that she would not be implementing the Obama-era Borrower Defense to Repayment rule revisions, which were meant to have taken effect July 1. Originally enacted in 1994, the rule was largely forgotten until the Obama administration revised it, offering more protections that were applicable to modern cases, such as the Corinthian colleges. The rule would have offered some protections to students in the situation by creating standards and banned schools from requiring students to waive their rights to go to court, if it were to be enacted.
California is one of 18 states suing the Department. On Thursday, California Attorney General Xavier Berecca (D) filed a 25-page document outlining his and his states’ complaints on the matter. In the complaint, he accused DeVos’ failure to implement the Defense unlawful.
“After having their American Dreams stolen by a so-called higher education institution, Corinthian students are now being denied critical relief by a Secretary of Education hostile to their plight,” Berecca said. “It is hard to believe that we are forced to sue the Department of Education to compel Secretary DeVos to carry out the Department’s legal duty and help these students rebuild their lives.”
The Defense was specifically enacted to protect and aid the victims of the Corinthian Colleges, but with Devos, it is unlikely that it will do anything to help them. Many have accused her of illegal practices, such as Berecca’s claims that she has violated the Administrative Procedures Act.
Because Devos’ department froze all 2015 revisions to the Borrower Defense, there are currently 28,000 cases wherein students like the Corinthian College victims had previously been granted relief but are now pending. Berecca believes that because the victims had already been declared to fall under the jurisdiction of this ruling, to freeze it now is “unconscionable”.
“The Department determined that these students qualified under its ‘borrower defense’ regulations for expedited discharge of their federal student loans and reimbursement of amounts previously paid,” Berecca said in his document.
Attorneys general in Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia have all filed against the department.
