“Corinthian 100” launch student loan strike

A group of current and former students attending schools run by US-based Corinthian Colleges—including Everest College, Heald College, and WyoTech—have joined together in a “debt strike.” The “Corinthian 100” are refusing to pay back their federal and private loans for programs that they were unable to complete or which are now considered “worthless.” The group alleges that the US Department of Education should have done a better job of monitoring and regulating the private colleges and should have informed students when the schools were under federal investigation. "I would like to see them have to answer for why they allowed these schools to continue to take federal loans out when they were under investigation for the fraudulent activity they were doing," said one student involved in the debt strike. Government agencies in both Canada and the US have taken steps to alleviate some of the debt burden of Corinthian students. CBC | Debt Collective

Postscript: June 9, 2015

The US federal government has announced a debt-relief plan for students affected by the closure of Corinthian Colleges. The plan will extend to all federal borrowers who are able to prove that they were defrauded by Corinthian; however, official also indicated that they expect similar claims from borrowers who attended other for-profit colleges that were found to have engaged in predatory practices. Officials said that it has not yet been determined what a borrower will have to do to prove that they were a victim of fraud. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said that the department is working on developing a “durable” process for loan forgiveness that will apply beyond Corinthian. The Chronicle of Higher Education | Inside Higher Ed

Postscript: July 14, 2015

The US Department of Education has announced that it won’t pursue legal action against the roughly 40,000 former Corinthian students who are in default. A group of former students has asked the department to suspend debt payments for up to 350,000 former students of the now-bankrupt chain. Reuters | Inside Higher Ed | Chronicle of Higher Education