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The Education Department is preparing to recoup millions in discharged student loans from the University of Arizona, which is currently dealing with a $177 million budget shortfall, Axios Phoenix reported.
The news comes after the department’s August announcement that it was forgiving $72 million in loans for students who attended the for-profit Ashford University, which the University of Arizona acquired in 2020 and renamed the University of Arizona Global Campus. UA officials have insisted that they’re not responsible for Ashford’s actions before the purchase.
The department said that Ashford officials lied to students repeatedly about the cost, time requirement and value of its degree program. That finding paved the way for the department to approve loan forgiveness applications for more than 2,300 students through the borrower defense to repayment program, which allows students to seek debt relief if they’ve been misled or defrauded by a college.
The department hasn’t said yet how much money it will ask the University of Arizona to repay or when the order will come down. Axios Phoenix reported that the agency “is in the process of initiating a recoupment action.” When the department approved $71.1 million in borrower-defense claims against DeVry University in 2022, it sought to recoup $24 million.
