Toby Merrill

One of the nation's largest for-profit college chains announced Wednesday that it was abruptly closing in dozens of locations nationwide, after its accrediting agency suspended approval. Birmingham, Alabama-based Education Corp. of America said it was closing schools operating as Virginia College, Brightwood College, Brightwood Career Institute, Ecotech Institute and Golf Academy of America in more than 70 locations in 21 states. The company said in October that it had more than 20,000 students, although more recent documents indicate the number may be closer to 15,000...Toby Merrill, who directs the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School, said students can ask the U.S. Department of Education to cancel loans if a school closes. However, that opportunity doesn't apply if a student transfers credits or if a school hires a successor to offer students classes to complete their programs.

As creditors of ITT Educational Services fight over the remaining assets of the defunct for-profit college operator, one group has secured a significant victory in the bankruptcy proceedings: former students...In the meantime, ITT’s estate has notified students who are eligible for the debt cancellation, according to the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School, a legal aid group that worked with the law firm Jenner & Block to represent the students. “This settlement does more for the cheated students of predatory for-profit colleges than [Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos has done in her entire administration,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending. “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.”

The students attended institutions with pragmatic names like the Minnesota School of Business and others whose branding evoked ivy-draped buildings and leafy quads, like Corinthian Colleges. Tens of thousands of them say they are alike in one respect: They were victims of fraud, left with useless degrees and crushing debts. Now the government program meant to forgive the federal loans of cheated students has all but stopped functioning...“This rule is only as good as the administration’s intent to implement it,” said Toby Merrill, the director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which has represented dozens of borrowers in lawsuits against schools and the Education Department.

More than 100,000 students defrauded by Corinthian Colleges can team up to sue Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for rolling back Obama-era rules that provided full debt forgiveness, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge Sallie Kim certified a nationwide class of approximately 110,000 students who claim the Education Department improperly used their private data to create a new Average Earnings rule that forces students to pay off at least some loan debt. “It’s a recognition by the court that in fact this whole group of people was affected in the same way,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Toby Merrill, with the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

A federal judge has ruled that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ move to ease protections for former students of for-profit colleges should be reversed, handing a victory to those who said they were defrauded by their schools...Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University, which is representing the students, hailed the decision. “Students are continuing to push back and win against the department’s unfair and corrupt policies,” Merrill said. “We are one step closer to these important provisions taking effect.”

A tug-of-war between student borrowers hoping to get tens of thousands of dollars in loans they took out for their education discharged and the government may be a step closer to resolution. A federal judge ruled this week that repeated delays by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos of an Obama administration plan to provide debt relief to defrauded borrowers was unlawful..."We think this is an incredibly important ruling both for cheated student loan borrowers and anyone who cares about the government under the rule of law instead of under the thumb of a predatory, for-profit college industry," said Toby Merrill, director of the Harvard Law School's Project on Predatory Student Lending.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ move to delay Obama-era protections for students defrauded by for-profit colleges was dealt a setback when a federal judge found her actions to be “arbitrary and capricious.”...Toby Merrill, a litigator at Harvard University’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents defrauded students, hailed the decision as “a huge a rebuke to the department. It’s a really big deal, it’s an incredibly important win for student borrowers and really for anyone who cares about having a government that operates under the rule of law as opposed to as a pawn of industry,” Merrill said.

The efforts by Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education to stymie an Obama-era rule surrounding for-profit colleges just hit a major roadblock. A district court judge ruled Wednesday evening that the multiple attempts by the Department to delay the regulation, known as the borrower defense rule, don’t have basis in law. The decision came as part of litigation brought on behalf of borrowers by Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization and Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending. The ruling also addresses similar litigation brought by 19 states attorneys general challenging the Department’s efforts to slow implementation of the rule. “This is not the first time, but it’s a really, really important time that we’ve gotten the Department’s illegal attempts to deny people their rights struck down,” said Toby Merrill, the director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending.

A federal judge has ruled that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' delay of a key student borrower protection rule was improper and unlawful. "This is such an important win for student borrowers and anyone who cares about a government that operates under the rule of law," says Toby Merrill, of Harvard Law School's Project On Predatory Student Lending.

...“There is no return on investment for students who attended schools like the Art Institute,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School. “Taking out loans to pay the high prices that these schools charge benefits their investors while leaving students with mountains of debt and without the professional opportunities they were seeking.”

...ITT’s chief executive, Kevin Modany, agreed to pay $200,000 to settle a suit with the Securities and Exchange Commission over claims the school misled investors about the impact of two failing student loan programs to the company’s bottom line. The company’s chief financial officer, Daniel Fitzpatrick, will pay $100,000...The contrast in fates between former ITT students like Schettler and the company’s top executives is “incredibly grotesque,” said Toby Merrill, the director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Lending. At the same time that the students are coping with debt that’s not dischargeable in bankruptcy that they can’t get rid of by filing for bankruptcy and being told to take their degrees off their résumés when job-hunting, “the shell of the company is dischargeable in bankruptcy and the debt is gone,” she said. And the executives are “being told that they can just walk away,” added Merrill, who is representing former ITT students as part of the bankruptcy process.

...“It is outrageous that the executives get to walk away with a sweetheart deal from the SEC while ITT students will be lucky to get a sliver of justice in ITT’s bankruptcy and the Department of Education refuses to cancel students’ fraudulent debt,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School and an attorney representing the students in the bankruptcy case.

Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education must stop collecting the federal student debt of some borrowers who say they were ripped off by a now-defunct for-profit college, at least for now. That’s according to an order issued Tuesday by Sallie Kim, a judge in the Federal District Court in San Francisco. It applies to students who attended certain Corinthian College programs beginning as far back as 2010 if they’ve applied for relief from their federal loans and only had them partially forgiven. The order also applies to borrowers who’ve applied for relief and are awaiting a response and to those who apply for relief in the future...“It’s a huge victory,” said Toby Merrill, the director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Lending, which is representing the borrowers in the case. “But in a way it’s also it’s dispiriting that we’re still fighting this.”

A federal court has ruled that the Education Department violated privacy laws with regard to students defrauded by the Corinthian for-profit college chain. In a break with Obama administration policy, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced in December that some students cheated by the now-defunct schools would only get a part of their federal student loan forgiven. In order to determine how much to forgive, the agency analyzes average earnings of graduates from similar programs. But a California district court ruled late Friday that the department's use of Social Security Administration data in order to calculate loan forgiveness violates the Privacy Act. The court ordered that the Education Department stop the practice and stop debt collection from these students...The decision marks an important victory for students challenging the partial loan forgiveness rule. Toby Merill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University, which is representing the students, hailed the decision. "The notion that students got anything other than negative value from Corinthian has been roundly disproved by student experience and the judgment of employers and the legitimate higher education sector," Merill said in a statement."

Students who attended for-profit colleges filed more than 98 percent of the requests for student loan forgiveness alleging fraud by their schools, according to an analysis of Education Department data. The study by The Century Foundation represents the most thorough analysis to date of the nearly 100,000 loan forgiveness claims known as borrower defense received by the agency over the past two decades and paints an alarming picture of the state of for-profit higher education in America...“The for-profit college industry scams students across the country and taxpayers and that’s why the industry, including industry insiders who are now staffing the Department of Education, is now fighting so hard against rules that would clarify the borrower defense process,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University, a legal services clinic that represents defrauded students. “If for-profit schools don’t want to be responsible for borrower defense claims and reimbursing taxpayers, then they could simply not cheat their students.”

The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) released a report this month chronicling the experiences of borrowers who had their EITC seized to pay back a student loan. Some told NCLC they were relying on the refund to improve their housing situation, others said they planned to use it to fix the car they need to get to their job and still others worried that losing the EITC could push them into homelessness...Perry’s story is similar to some of what Toby Merrill hears representing borrowers who have been misled by for-profit colleges as part of her work with the Project on Predatory Student Lending, a program at Harvard Law School that Merrill directs. Her clients often have their EITC seized over a student loan that Merrill argues the government doesn’t have a legal right to collect because they were made under fraudulent circumstances. “The Department of Education frequently seizes Earned Income Tax Credits from definitionally low-income borrowers whose loans aren’t even enforceable,” she said.

An op-ed by Toby Merrill and Eileen Connor. For years, predatory for-profit colleges have exploited the promise of higher education, cheating students and leaving them in mountains of debt they never should have had. Making it worse, the industry has been enabled by a Department of Education that has made excuse after excuse about why it can not step in to help students. Last week, the Education Department ran out of excuses.

The Trump administration has paused processing claims to help borrowers who say they’ve been duped by their schools...To be one of the thousands of borrowers waiting in limbo for a determination of their claim is “terrible,” said Toby Merrill, the director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School, which represents former for-profit college students who’ve been harmed by their schools.

For the past several years, students who believe they’ve been scammed by their colleges have waited in limbo while policy makers and industry stakeholders determine their fate. This week provides a vivid reminder of their plight. Starting Monday, the Department of Education will convene a group of representatives from a variety of sectors to develop a rule for how and when these borrowers can have their federal student loans forgiven...But consumer advocates say the delays are simply a pretext for the Department to try to deny borrowers access to relief they’re entitled to under the law. Toby Merrill, the director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, described the new rule-making process as “regulatory theater.” “I don’t think that the Department is acting in good faith on behalf of borrowers,” she said. “This administration has only ever sided with the predatory for-profit college industry against borrowers — including against borrowers’ legal rights.”

Two women who claim they were defrauded by a for-profit college have sued the Education Department and a private loan servicer in a case their attorneys say could provide a new legal remedy for tens of thousands of students frustrated with the department's inaction on claims seeking loan forgiveness..."People's rights not to pay for defective products is well established in law, so whatever the Department of Education is or is not doing, the legal rights of borrowers continue to exist and are enforceable against the government just as they are against private parties," said Toby Merill, a litigator at Harvard University's Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents defrauded students.

Students who attended for-profit colleges filed more than 98 percent of the requests for student loan forgiveness alleging fraud by their schools, according to an analysis of Education Department data published Thursday...“The for-profit college industry scams students across the country and taxpayers and that’s why the industry, including industry insiders who are now staffing the Department of Education, is now fighting so hard against rules that would clarify the borrower defense process,” said Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard University, a legal services clinic that represents defrauded students. “If for-profit schools don’t want to be responsible for borrower defense claims and reimbursing taxpayers, then they could simply not cheat their students.”