More than 260,000 former students at Ashford University, a now-defunct for-profit university, have had their student loans canceled as the Biden administration advances its final stages of debt forgiveness.
Ashford was once one of the nation's largest for-profit college corporations, serving more than 100,000 students. It was owned by Zovio until the University of Arizona acquired the online college in 2020.
The Department of Education forgives loans to Ashford University students after a California court finds that the university routinely misled prospective students about its accreditation, costs and time to graduation. I started doing it.
In 2023, the agency canceled loans to 2,300 former Ashford University students who applied for relief under the Borrower Defense Program. The new measure extends forgiveness to all former students who were present during the alleged misconduct, even if they did not apply for redress.
The administration's new measures will erase the loan balances of borrowers who attended Ashford from March 2009 to April 2020.
In an unusual move, the department also sought to bar Zovio's founders from serving on the board of any institution that receives federal financial aid. The agency said in a statement that Andrew Clark “not only oversaw illegal conduct, but personally participated in it and promoted the worst aspects of a boiler room recruitment culture.” He is reportedly recommending that he be disqualified for at least three years.
The matter will be decided by the department's Office of Hearings and Appeals. A message was left with the attorney who represented Clark when he was at Zovio.
The Biden administration previously said it assumed responsibility for the University of Arizona's acquisition of Ashford and said it was seeking to withdraw funds from the University to make up for the cancellation. But that effort appears to have stalled, and the Trump administration, which is expected to be far friendlier to the for-profit college industry, is unlikely to support it.
Congressional Republicans are at loggerheads with the Biden administration over canceling student loans, calling it an overreach by the president that burdens taxpayers who didn't attend college. Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx released a report this month that said Biden was “trying to expand every law” and misused the Borrower Defense Program to cancel loans.
She took issue with the very practice used in Ashford: automatically canceling loans for large numbers of borrowers even if they did not apply for relief. When Trump became president, Foxx wrote, “Things will finally get better.”
Biden announced a separate final round of forgiveness this month under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. With this action, the administration provided loan relief to more than 5 million borrowers through a variety of existing programs, more than any other president.
Still, Biden failed to deliver on his promise of widespread student loan forgiveness. The Supreme Court blocked his plan to erase up to $20,000 for more than 40 million Americans, and a second attempt tangled in federal court as several Republican states challenged it. is.
