WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Joe Biden has announced that his Administration is approving $6.1 billion in student debt cancellation for 317,000 borrowers who attended the Art Institutes.
Biden said this institution falsified data, knowingly misled students, and cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt without leading to promising career prospects at the end of their studies.
Borrowers who enrolled at any Art Institute campus on or after January 1, 2004, through October 16, 2017, will get the benefit of the loan waiver.
The U.S. Department of Education said it found that The Art Institutes and its parent company, Education Management Corporation, made pervasive and substantial misrepresentations to prospective students about postgraduation employment rates, salaries, and career services during that time.
In October 2017, EDMC sold its remaining Art Institute campuses, and all existing Art Institute campuses closed under separate ownership in September 2023.
'For more than a decade, hundreds of thousands of hopeful students borrowed billions to attend The Art Institutes and got little but lies in return. That ends today-thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration's work with the attorneys general offices of Iowa, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania,' said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. 'We must continue to protect borrowers from predatory institutions-and work toward a higher education system that is affordable to students and taxpayers.'
The Department independently reviewed evidence provided by the attorneys general offices of Iowa, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, which conducted multi-year investigations into, and brought lawsuits against, The Art Institutes and EDMC.
Over the last three years, the Biden Administration has approved nearly $29 billion in debt relief for 1.6 million borrowers whose colleges took advantage of them, closed abruptly, or were covered by related court settlements.
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