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After the Trump administration lost a federal court battle over 2016 Obama borrower-defense regulations, Democratic attorneys general are seeking answers about when Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will begin issuing loan forgiveness to borrowers who attended now defunct for-profit colleges.
The regulations, which went into effect last month, require the Education Department to automatically discharge the federal student loans of borrowers whose institution closed on or after Nov. 1, 2013, and who didn't enroll elsewhere within three years of the college's closure. In a letter to DeVos this week, attorneys general for 21 states as well as the District of Columbia wrote that tens of thousands of borrowers should now qualify for loan forgiveness.
"The Department's 2016 regulations leave no discretion to withhold this relief," they wrote. "Three years after a school closes, the department is obligated to process the closed-school discharges for all eligible students."
The Obama administration had sought to include the automatic discharge provision in the 2016 regulation in part because nearly half of eligible borrowers never apply for that relief.
The Education Department did not offer a comment in response to the letter.
