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Former ITT Technical Institute students, who learned last week that their campuses would be closing, began a debt strike Wednesday and demanded that the U.S. Department of Education cancel their student loans and close all for-profit colleges.
The strike was organized by The Debt Collective, a group that claims more than 1,000 ITT students have submitted defense-to-repayment applications asking for a closed-school loan discharge.
"We refuse to pay our government-issued student loans. We do not owe them. In fact, you owe us and our fellow ITT borrowers. By striking our debts we begin to collect on your obligation to erase them," the group stated in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. and President Obama.
Meanwhile, ITT Educational Services, the parent company of ITT, says it will cease all operations this Friday. ITT had cut back its operations to about 200 employees from 8,000 following the announcement to close.