Toby Merrill

A for-profit college received millions of dollars from the federal government to help low-income students whose lives have been upended by the coronavirus outbreak, but that same school, Florida Career College (FCC), is also accused of defrauding students. A federal class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of students in April calls FCC "a sham" and alleges that, long before the pandemic, the college was targeting economically vulnerable people of color. The plaintiffs say the vocational school enticed them with false promises of career training and job placement — but spent little on instruction while charging exorbitant prices and pushing students into loans they cannot repay. The lawsuit comes as thousands of colleges across the country are receiving federal emergency relief in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Through the CARES Act, FCC has been allotted $17 million. The law requires that at least half of that money goes directly to students, but makes few stipulations for the rest of it...The complaint alleges that Florida Career College, along with its parent company, specifically targets economically vulnerable people of color. "They are recruiting at majority Black high schools," says Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs. "They are putting up billboards in towns where the population is mostly Black. And they're doing a lot of advertising on social media where you can choose to target your ad essentially by race."

The U.S. Education Department is promising to process student loan forgiveness claims for nearly 170,000 borrowers within 18 months as part of a proposed settlement announced Friday in a federal lawsuit. The suit alleges that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos illegally stalled a program known as borrower defense to repayment, which promises to forgive federal student loans for borrowers who are cheated by their colleges. When the lawsuit was filed in June 2019, it had been a year since the department issued a final decision on any claim. Most of the borrowers awaiting decisions attended for-profit colleges, and some have been waiting more than four years for a decision. Under the settlement, DeVos admits no wrongdoing but promises to issue decisions on all pending claims within 18 months, and to cancel debt for approved claims within 21 months...If the agency fails to decide a claim within 18 months, officials must cancel 30% of debt for every month they're overdue. And if the agency garnishes students' wages or takes their tax refunds while they're awaiting a decision, it must discharge 80% of the debt. “This settlement is a very important step that will allow them to finally get a decision and move forward," said said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University, which represented the plaintiffs. "The Department of Education’s refusal to cancel these loans quickly and in their entirety is a stain on the federal student loan program.”

Advocates for students and veterans lauded a record $191 million settlement reached in a case against one of the country’s largest for-profit college chains this week as an important step forward in protecting students, but said the compensation was “a drop in the bucket” compared to the total debt borrowers owe. ... Toby Merrill, the director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School, said federal student loans were "by far the largest component of debt created" by for-profit schools. "Unfortunately, because such enforcement actions are directed against the school, they don't directly cancel the loan debt," she said.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is doubling down on a controversial policy of granting partial debt relief to students defrauded by their colleges, despite ongoing legal challenges and a congressional inquiry...A federal judge in May 2018 blocked DeVos’s first attempt to cancel only a portion of the debt amassed by a group of former Corinthian Colleges students, ruling that the department violated federal laws in the way it used earnings data from the Social Security Administration...The Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University, a legal aid group representing the Corinthian students, has argued that any partial relief formula is illegal under the 1995 debt relief statute that entitles defrauded students to full loan cancellation. Toby Merrill, director at the Project on Predatory Student Lending, said the formula is also an arbitrary way to grant loan forgiveness. “It still has the same problem of geographic incoherence, timing incoherence,” Merrill said. “What people earn all over the country is so different, so these averages are just going to produce statistically, mathematically nonsensical results as applied to individuals, and really don’t measure the harm they’ve endured.”

The U.S. Department of Education agreed to hand over department records late Thursday to Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House education committee, just hours before Scott was set to subpoena Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for the records. The information relates to the Education Department’s unwillingness to fully forgive the federal student loans of borrowers who say they were defrauded by for-profit colleges, including the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges. ... “Our clients aren’t asking the government for a handout or a bailout. They’re asking the government to follow the existing law,” says Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School. The group filed the lawsuit that includes Davis.

The U.S. Department of Education agreed to hand over department records late Thursday to Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House education committee, just hours before Scott was set to subpoena Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for the records. The information relates to the Education Department's unwillingness to fully forgive the federal student loans of borrowers who say they were defrauded by for-profit colleges, including the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges. ... "Our clients aren't asking the government for a handout or a bailout. They're asking the government to follow the existing law," says Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School. The group filed the lawsuit that includes Davis.

TIME named Toby Merrill, founder and Director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, to the first-ever TIME 100 Next, a new expansion of the TIME 100 list of the most influential people in the world. The list highlights 100 rising stars who are shaping the future of business, entertainment, sports, politics, health, science and activism, and more. Others on the TIME 100 Next list include Pete Buttigieg, Kyrsten Sinema, Aly Raisman and more.

Dehlia Umunna remembered seeing the fear. “His eyes were dark,” Umunna recalled. “And he was close to tears. And he looked at me and said, ‘Will I be going to jail and will I be going to jail for a very long time?’” “He was shaking,” she said. “I looked over at his mom and his mom was shaking. She was nervous. She was holding the hands of her 13-year-old boy.” Umunna, a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and deputy director of the Criminal Justice Institute, subsequently learned that the boy, who suffered from bipolar disorder and ADHD, had been surreptitiously videotaped playing video games in his living room wearing only his underwear. By the time he arrived at school the next day, the video had been posted online, where it had been seen by 300 of his peers, who proceeded to tease him. Frustrated and angry, he was heard to say, “I understand why the Parkland shooter did what he did.” ...“And as I looked over the case, I said to myself, this is exactly what [Prof.] Martha [Minow]’s book talks about,” she recalled. “This is a prime example of where we should nudge the courts and the decision-makers to exercise forgiveness.”...Umunna’s comments came during a panel discussion of “When Should Law Forgive?”, a new book by Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor and former dean of HLS. The book explores the complicated intersection of the law, justice, and forgiveness, asking whether the law should encourage people to forgive, and when courts, public officials, and specific laws should forgive. In addition to Umunna and Minow, panelists included Carol Steiker ’86, the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law and co-director of the Criminal Justice Policy Program; Toby Merrill ’11, an HLS lecturer on law and director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending; and Homi K. Bhabha

Former students who say they were defrauded by now-defunct, for-profit colleges can take on the U.S. Department of Education as a class in a suit alleging the agency is slow-rolling their loan forgiveness applications, a California federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge William Alsup certified a class that could encompass more than 150,000 borrowers who applied for loan relief but haven't gotten a decision yet from the Education Department. ... Toby Merrill, the director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending, which is part of Harvard Law School's Legal Services Center, told Law360 on Thursday that the student borrowers his organization is representing in the case are happy with the judge's decision. "These borrowers, the vast majority of whom attended for-profit schools, were cheated by their schools, and then ignored by their government," Merrill said. "This lawsuit asks the court to force Secretary DeVos to follow existing law, to stop ignoring borrowers' rights to loan cancellation, and to allow these people to go on with their lives."

A federal judge held U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in contempt of court last week for billing thousands of students who were victims of education fraud. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim on Thursday said the Department of Education continued to collect money from former students of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges despite a May 2018 court order to stop. The San Francisco judge fined the department $100,000 and required detailed monthly reporting to verify future compliance. “The judge is sending a loud and clear message,” said Toby Merrill, director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which helped file the suit. “Students have rights under the law, and DeVos’ illegal and reckless violation of their rights will not be tolerated.”

There are so many outrages to keep track of with the Trump administration, so many officials determined to gut the very departments they lead, that it’s hard to keep up. For example, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos still exists. Did you forget that or, like me, wish you could? This particular fox continues to guard a henhouse crammed with students battling soaring debts, a crushing burden that harms the entire economy. Luckily, the judiciary also still exists, and it is not yet completely stacked with underqualified Trump toadies. On Thursday evening, a federal judge in San Francisco held DeVos in contempt and slapped her department with a $100,000 fine for continuing to squeeze victims of shady for-profit colleges to pay back their loans after she had been ordered to stop. ... The Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School sued, and that was supposed to freeze collections. Except the department continued to put the squeeze on 16,000 students, even garnishing some of their wages and tax refunds. “They have been cheated and lied to by both the schools and the government,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project. The Department said billing the students had been an innocent mistake, and that they have returned the payments.

A federal judge on Thursday fined Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for contempt of court, ruling that she had violated an order to stop collecting on loans owed by students from a now-defunct for-profit chain of colleges. ...The decision stems from a class-action lawsuit filed in 2017 by the Project on Predatory Student Lending of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School and the group Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, both of which represent former Corinthian students. For more than a year, the students’ lawyers argued that Ms. DeVos had illegally punished thousands of cheated students who were owed relief from the federal government. Toby Merrill, director of the project, said that the ruling demonstrated “the extreme harm” of Ms. DeVos’s actions. “Secretary DeVos has repeatedly and brazenly violated the law to collect for-profit college students’ debts and deny their rights, and today she has been held accountable,” she said.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was held in contempt of court and the Education Department must pay a $100,000 fine after a federal judge ruled it failed to stop collecting student loans on a now-defunct college. The rare rebuke came after U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim was "astounded" to discover that DeVos and her department continued to chase more than 16,000 former students from the bankrupt Corinthian Colleges Inc. for funds allegedly owed earlier this month despite a 2018 order to stop. ...In an interview with Newsweek prior to this week's hearing, Harvard lawyer Toby Merrill said that such a finding would be inevitable as there was "no factual question" that DeVos violated the 2018 order. Merrill is the director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University who brought about the class action suit on behalf of 80,000 affected students against the Education Department. ..."Taking this rare and powerful action to hold the Secretary of Education in contempt of court shows the extreme harm Betsy DeVos' actions have caused students defrauded by for-profit colleges," she said. "Secretary DeVos has repeatedly and brazenly violated the law to collect for-profit college students' debts and deny their rights, and today she has been held accountable.  

You've probably seen the ads. “They have spiffy marketing machines that are really good at drawing people in,” says Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard's Legal Services Center. “So, of course people see those ads and think that it's a good opportunity, that's what they're meant to make you think.” Merrill is talking about for-profit colleges. She warns many for-profit schools fail to deliver on the promises they advertise. “What the schools are telling people is that they're providing high quality state of the art training, often times like vocational hands on learning,” explains Merrill. “And either when students enroll they find out that's not true, or often it's even after they leave the school and find out their degree isn't valued by employers.” Merrill says graduates of for-profit colleges are often saddled with a worthless degree, and massive debt.

... The Education Department is refunding some student loan payments made by thousands of borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges. A federal judge last year had ordered it to stop collecting on the debt amid an ongoing class action lawsuit. ... Toby Merrill, director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents the Corinthian borrowers in the case, blasted the Trump administration for “an illegal and unacceptable breach of a court order that students won.”

More than 150,000 former students of for-profit colleges filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday, claiming the agency is depriving them of the student debt relief to which they’re legally entitled. The plaintiffs, represented by Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending and Housing & Economic Rights Advocates, accuse the Department of Education under DeVos of failing to implement an Obama-era regulation known as “borrower defense, ” which allows students to have their federal student loans cancelled if their school misled them or engaged in other misconduct. “The law is clear: Students who experienced fraud should not be required to pay back federal loans that should never have been made by the Department in the first place,” said Toby Merrill, director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ attempts to swiftly roll back major Obama-era policies at her agency are hitting a roadblock: federal courts. Judges have rebuffed DeVos’ attempts to change Obama policies dealing with everything from student loan forgiveness to mandatory arbitration agreements to racial disparities in special education programs. ... “It speaks to the Department of Education’s unwillingness or inability to follow the basic law around how federal agencies conduct themselves,” said Toby Merrill, who directs the Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which has brought some of the lawsuits against DeVos. Every administration has wins and losses in court, Merrill said, but most have done better at making sure they follow the legal rules of the road for rulemaking. “At the very least, they cross their Ts and dot their Is and therefore are less vulnerable to some of the procedural challenges that have been the undoing of so many of this Department of Education’s policies,” she said.

Marta Villanueva enrolled in a culinary program at the Art Institute of Phoenix as a way to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety after leaving the Army.  She used GI Bill benefits to pay for classes, which began in mid-2017. She dreamed of opening a business one day. But the school closed in December, leaving Villanueva out the time and money, and unsure how, or if, she’ll get her GI Bill benefits reinstated. ...But the contraction in private, mostly for-profit colleges isn't only a recent phenomenon, said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School. There's a long-term, boom-and-bust cycle that runs counter to unemployment numbers, Merrill said.

While the bankruptcy fight over failed for-profit educator ITT Educational Services continues, the biggest group involved in the legal battle has scored a big victory. In late November, a federal bankruptcy judge in Indianapolis gave final approval to a $600 million settlement that will affect about 750,000 former students of ITT Technical Institute. ... The group of students filed their claims against ITT in bankruptcy court in January 2017. They were represented by the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School and the law firm of Jenner & Block LLP. ...“This settlement has done more for the cheated students of predatory for-profit colleges than [Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos has done in her entire administration,” Project on Predatory Student Lending Director Toby Merrill said in a written statement. “At a time when students are being ignored by their government, ITT students stood up to this predatory college themselves and secured the relief they are owed. Now it’s time for Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education to do the right thing and cancel the billions of dollars in remaining fraudulent federal loans.”