The U.S. Department of Education is crafting new regulations to help students seek debt relief and better hold colleges accountable for wrongdoing in the aftermath of the collapse this spring of Santa Ana-based Corinthian Colleges Inc.
A final regulation is not expected until November 2016, and the department has offered few specifics, the Los Angeles Times reported.
U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said the rules will complement an initiative already underway that allows potentially hundreds of thousands of former Corinthian students to apply for federal student- loan forgiveness, according to The Times Thursday.
He said the new regulations are intended to be more proactive, holding problematic institutions accountable for wrongdoing before they go under, as was the case with Santa Ana-based Corinthian, which filed for bankruptcy in May.
“We want institutions to know, in no uncertain terms, that they are responsible for the malfeasance that they create,” Mitchell said, according to The Times.
Ever since Corinthian’s troubles came to light last summer amid a federal investigation into inflated job-placement numbers, student activists, lawmakers and state attorneys general have called on the Department of Education to help students shouldering massive debts.
—City News Service