Heald College students to have fraudulent loans forgiven by U.S. Department of Education
SALINAS, Calif. (KION-TV)-- The U.S. Department of Education said it would dismiss all federal student loans borrowed to attend any campus owned or run by Corinthian Colleges Inc. from its start in 1995 to its closure in 2015.
This includes Heald College, which was in operation in Salinas until 2015. The total forgiveness reaches 560,000 borrowers and $5.8 billion in total loans.
READ MORE: Heald College students try to figure out what’s next
Borrowers will have to do nothing more, and they will be reached in the coming months by the U.S. Department of Education.
This loan forgiveness is part of the Biden-Harris borrower's relief program. The total loan relief the Biden-Harris Administration has approved for borrowers is up to $25 billion since January 2021.
As of today, every student deceived, defrauded, and driven into debt by Corinthian Colleges can rest assured that the Biden-Harris administration has their back and will discharge their federal student loans," For far too long, Corinthian engaged in the wholesale financial exploitation of students, misleading them into taking on more and more debt to pay for promises they would never keep. While our actions today will relieve Corinthian Colleges' victims of their burdens, the Department of Education is actively ramping up oversight to better protect today's students from tactics and make sure that for-profit institutions – and the corporations that own them – never again get away with such abuse.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
READ MORE: Heald College in Salinas shuts down
The Department of Education decided back in 2015 that Corinthian engaged in "widespread misrepresentations related to a borrower's employment prospects, including guarantees they would find a job. Corinthian also made pervasive misstatements to prospective students about the ability to transfer credits and falsified their public job placement rates."
In 2010, at its peak, Corinthian enrolled more than 110,00 students at 105 campuses.
