Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear said Wednesday that federal student loans should be discharged when for-profit colleges close while students are enrolled.
The position targets schools like Daymar College, which operated ten campuses in Kentucky, including one in Bellevue, which shut down.
Beshear called on federal authorities to immediately discharge such loans for schools that closed down while students were enrolled mid-program.
Beshear joined other attorneys general from across the country urging U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy Devos to provide immediate and automatic loan relief to borrows after a recent federal court ruling.
On October 16, the U.S. Department of Education’s “borrower defense” regulations went into effect after a federal court held that the department’s repeated delay attempts were unlawful, Beshear said.
Eligible students are those who attended a school when it closed on or after November 1, 2013, and who did not subsequently re-enroll in an eligible program within three years from the date that the school closed.
Tens of thousands of students across the country were affected by such closures – which number around 1,400 – in 2014 and 2015.
“In Kentucky, students attending schools that closed have been left with no degree or benefit and substantial student loan debt, and they are entitled to have their loans discharged with no further action on their part,” Beshear said. “My office will continue to fight for all Kentuckians as consumers but more importantly as students who want to better themselves and their families.”
Among the 42 campuses in Kentucky that have closed since Nov. 1, 2013, are ITT Tech that closed its Louisville and Lexington campuses, and Daymar, which still operated in Bowling Green.
In 2016, Beshear announced nearly 3,500 former students of Daymar College’s Kentucky campuses and online programs would receive restitution checks totaling $1.2 million. The payments were pursuant to a settlement agreement the Office of the Attorney General entered into with Daymar in 2015 resolving a consumer protection lawsuit.
-Staff report
Photo: Daymar College in Bellevue (RCN file)