Thousands Of N.J. College Students Eligible To Cancel Student Loans: AG

If you’re one of the 2,200 New Jersey residents who sank thousands of dollars into an education at a school operated by Corinthian Colleges Inc. – only to find that your degree didn’t help you land a job - you may have a shot at canceling your student loans.

On Monday, state officials advised students who attended the affected schools - Everest Institute, Everest College, Everest University, Heald College and Wyotech – that they may be eligible for federal loan cancellation due to the company’s “misrepresentations” about their chances of using their degree to find a job after graduation.

According to a Monday statement from the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General:

“After intense scrutiny by various government entities, the for-profit Corinthian Colleges abruptly ceased operations in 2015, transferring some of its campuses to a nonprofit called Zenith Education Group. The U.S. Department of Education then found that while it was operating, Corinthian made widespread misrepresentations between 2010 and 2014 about post-graduation employment rates at many of its campuses.”

If a student’s federal loan is cancelled, they don’t have to make any more payments on the loan, and any payments already made will be refunded, the NJ OAG stated.

About 2,200 New Jersey residents are eligible for federal student loan cancellation relative to the Corinthian College closures and subsequent findings of fraud against the company, state officials said.

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“Many people in New Jersey and across the nation incurred student loan debt in order to enroll in these schools, only to find that they’d been given exaggerated promises and that the education they paid for was not as advertised,” Attorney General Christopher Porrino stated Monday. “Many of these same students remain saddled with debt, even though Corinthian Colleges and its subsidiaries have shut down.”

One of the affected schools, Everest Institute, operated a campus in South Plainfield on Hadley Road. Programs offered at the school that may be eligible for loan cancellation included electrician, massage therapy, medical administrative assistant, medical assistant, medical insurance billing and coding and pharmacy technician.

According to the campus’ 2016 ACCSC Graduate Employment Disclosure, advertised post-graduation “employment rates” at the South Plainfield location included:

• Electrician – 75 %
• Massage Therapy – 75 %
• Medical Administrative Assistant – 74 %
• Medical Assistant – 59 %
• Pharmacy Technician - 65 %

WHAT STUDENTS ARE ELIGIBLE?

According to state officials, lists of the affected campuses, programs and dates of enrollment are available at https://www.StudentAid.gov/ev-wy-findings and at https://www.StudentAid.gov/heald-findings.

However, according to the NJ OAG, “any student who attended Corinthian Colleges and believes that the school lied about job prospects, the transferability of credits or other issues” can apply to have their student loans canceled using the Department of Education’s universal discharge application at https://borrowerdischarge.ed.gov.

More information is available at https://studentaid.ed.gov/borrower-defense.

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