Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced that she would erase loans of more than 1,500 students who attended two for-profit colleges that shuttered last year.
Federal loans of students who attended the Illinois Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Colorado from January 20, 2018 until the end of last year will be canceled. However, the students will still be responsible for any previous loans. About $11 million worth of loans will now stand canceled, according to Associated Press.
The decision involves colleges owned by Dream Center Education Holdings, which collapsed last year and shut down several campuses across the U.S.
This report comes in the light of a controversy — The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration gave almost $11 million in student aid to unaccredited for-profit colleges, while knowing the institutions lacked the required certification.
DeVos has come under fire for her handling of federal loan forgiveness programs, which were expanded by the Obama administration. Under her, the Education Department stopped processing claims from students who said they were defrauded by their schools. She also moved to tighten eligibility rules, prompting backlash from Democrats and lawsuits from students and advocacy groups.
Although @usedgov has finally taken a step in the right direction, this announcement falls well short of what Congress requested, and well short of what students deserve. https://t.co/Qw2atakvqL
— Rep. Bobby Scott (@BobbyScott) November 8, 2019
Meanwhile, Americans are not pleased that taxpayers will now be footing DeVos’s fine of $100,000, for “failing to do her job.”
READ MORE: How Betsy DeVos Became The Most Hated Cabinet Secretary - HuffPost