Defrauded by for-profit schools

[Consumer Reports]   In recent years, the for-profit college industry has come under fire for a range of troubling tactics - aggressively selling their programs to low-income communities, people of color, and veterans, and promising career training that will lead to lucrative careers. All too often they would fail to deliver on their promises, only to leave students stuck in debt. In 2016, after multiple investigations into patterns of abuse at schools like Corinthian College and ITT Tech, the Department of Education updated its “Borrower Defense” rule to make it easier for students to cancel their debts if they could prove they were defrauded or misled. But now Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is planning to roll back those protections — leaving students who were scammed with nowhere to turn. Under her revised “Borrower Defense” proposal, borrowers will have to default on their loans and face collections before they can apply for relief — and find evidence to prove that the school acted recklessly or intentionally to deceive them. The new rule makes it harder to cancel students’ loans when a school abruptly closes. It also lets schools use forced arbitration clauses to block students from suing them for justice. [Tell Secretary DeVos: don't reverse protections for defrauded student loan borrowers! Write a comment now using our tool and we’ll submit it directly to the Department of Education.]( If this issue personally affects you or someone you know, make sure to write about that in your comment. The Department of Education already crafted a well-balanced set of protections in 2016, based on years of investigations and evidence. Those protections should be reinstated without delay. [Submit a comment to Secretary DeVos and the Department of Education now.]( After you’re done taking action, forward this to your friends and family so we can get even more people speaking out. Thank you for taking action today, Omar Hakim Consumer Reports [Unsubscribe from Consumer Reports action alerts.]( © 2018 Consumer Reports, 101 Truman Avenue, Yonkers, NY, 10703 [Contact Consumer Reports](