Release date:
10/11/2018
(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein today announced that he has filed an amicus brief in support of students defrauded by Corinthian Colleges (Corinthian). The brief, filed in the Calvillo Manriquez v. DeVos case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, supports Corinthian students who had won an injunction against the U.S. Department of Education. The district court injunction ordered the Department of Education to stop its practice of providing only partial relief — sometimes as little as 10 percent — to defrauded students of the now-defunct, predatory, for-profit Corinthian.
“The borrower defense rule protects students, not predatory, for-profit colleges,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “I’m proud to support these students, who – as victims of fraud – deserve all the student loan relief they are entitled to.”
It has been estimated that North Carolina is home to more than 10,000 former Corinthian students, more than 8,000 of whom were likely eligible for immediate student loan relief. Corinthian did business under the names Heald College, Everest, and WyoTech.
Corinthian intentionally targeted low-income, vulnerable people through deceptive practices and false advertising that misrepresented job placement rates and other key facts about Corinthian schools. Prior to the schools’ closure in 2015, the North Carolina Department of Justice was part of a coalition of state attorneys general who helped, with the assistance of the Department of Education, end Corinthian’s abusive practices and provide debt relief to Corinthian students. However, the Department of Education has recently made it difficult for students to get loan relief. In 2017, Secretary Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education halted approval of all borrower defense claims. The Department then announced it would grant only partial relief to Corinthian borrowers. Students challenged the Department’s action and won in U.S. District Court. Attorney General Stein’s amicus brief supports the District Court order that stopped the Department of Education’s illegal attempt to shortchange defrauded Corinthian students.
Attorney General Stein is joined in this action by the Attorneys General of California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.
A copy of the brief can be found here.
Contact:
Laura Brewer (919) 716-6484
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