Cancel All Corinthian Colleges Student Debt

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/23/cancel-all-corinthian-colleges-student-debt

In February, 15 students who had attended Corinthian Colleges Inc. launched the nation's first student debt strike. The students declared that they would no longer repay their loans on the grounds that Corinthian — a network of for-profit schools including Everest, Heald and WyoTech — had used fraudulent marketing and recruitment practices and that the credits and degrees they earned were worthless. Soon the Corinthian 15 became the Corinthian 100, and the 200. Groups such as the American Federation of Teachers and Jobs With Justice endorsed their cause.

Corinthian filed for bankruptcy in May, and the Department of Education has now announced a plan to cancel the debt of some former Corinthian students.

This is a significant victory for the strikers. It shows that the tactic of debt refusal, when strategically deployed, can get results. But the department hasn't done nearly as much as it could, or should, to set things right.

When Education Secretary Arne Duncan revealed the debt relief plan, he blasted schools such as Corinthian for bringing "the ethics of payday lending into higher education." These schools, Duncan said, "prey on the most vulnerable students and leave them with debt that they too often can't repay." Indeed, a third of Corinthian students came from families that earned less than $10,000 per year.

A close look at the fine print, however, reveals that Duncan and his staff are presenting a stopgap measure as a meaningful solution. Instead of issuing a blanket discharge to all former Corinthian students, the department offers a byzantine process that will likely leave out many students.