The Biden administration continues to make good on its promise to cancel student loan debt, as it was just confirmed via the White House that another massive amount has just been canceled—and the now-closed ITT Technical Institute is at the center of it. Over 200,000 students who previously attended ITT Technical Institute now have President Biden to thank for officially canceling $3.9 billion of their student loan debt.
@CNN reports, according to a recent announcement from the Department of Education, almost $4 billion in student loan debt has been canceled for approximately 208,000 students who attended ITT Technical Institute between January 1, 2005 through September 2016 when it permanently closed. This now brings the total amount of approved student loan debt cancellation under President Biden to almost $32 billion. As of now, it has not been specified how soon borrowers will be notified of their debt cancellation, as the Department of Education explained that the borrower’s student loan servicer has to be informed first.
As for who is eligible to receive the student loan debt forgiveness, it includes those with federal student loan debt even if they didn’t previously apply for student debt relief under the Department of Education’s borrower defense to repayment program. However, there could also be former ITT Tech students with outstanding debt who are not eligible because they attended before the January 2005 date of initial cancellation.
You may recall that ITT Technical Institute was officially shut down following the federal government withdrawing its funding because the institute failed to prove it was complying with specific accreditation standards. Speaking about the recent decision regarding ITT Tech, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said, “It is time for student borrowers to stop shouldering the burden from ITT’s years of lies and false promises.”
He also added that “The evidence shows that for years, ITT’s leaders intentionally misled students about the quality of their programs in order to profit off federal student loan programs, with no regard for the hardship this would cause.”
