U.S. to Help Remove Debt Burden for Students Defrauded by For-Profit Chain
Though thousands of students who took out federal loans from 1986 to 1994 to attend Wilfred are eligible
for loan forgiveness, only about 100 applied through the New York Legal Assistance Group.
The Wilfred students are getting their loans canceled under a federal law
that allows borrowers to apply for loan forgiveness if the schools they attended falsely certified them as eligible for loans.
“We hope the lawsuit, and the settlement, will encourage the department to take steps in the future to prevent for-profit schools
from engaging in fraudulent activity, to keep borrowers from becoming victims in the first place,” Ms. Greengold Stevens said.
“The department has been collecting on these loans for decades, including by garnishing wages
and intercepting income tax refunds,” said Jane Greengold Stevens, the director of litigation at New York Legal Assistance Group, a nonprofit representing the former students.
Referring to a tattoo on her chest of a spider dangling from a web by a thread, she said: “That was me.”
Now, Ms. Rivera has a letter from the Education Department stating
that her debt has been eliminated and her previous repayments — totaling $2,000 to $3,000, according to the legal assistance group — would be refunded.