DeVry University misled students. Now, the federal government is erasing their debt

DeVry University misled students. Now, the federal government is erasing² their debt

Transcript³

Nearly 16,000 federal student loan borrowers who were misled by for-profit colleges will have $415 million in debts erased⁴, according to the U.S. Department of Education. These borrowers — who attended DeVry University, ITT Technical Institute and other schools — will receive relief through a legal provision known as borrower defense⁵, which promises loan relief for defrauded⁶ borrowers.

With this announcement, the Biden administration says it has approved roughly $2 billion in loan relief for more than 107,000 borrowers through borrower defense.

Wednesday's news stands out not only for the borrowers it will help, but because this is the first time the department has said it will grant borrower defense claims — acknowledging students had been defrauded — while a school accused of defrauding⁷ them, DeVry University, remains⁸ open for business and still enjoys access to millions of dollars in federal student loans.

According to the department, approximately 1,800 former DeVry students will receive more than $70 million in loan relief after the department "determined⁹ that the institution made widespread substantial misrepresentations about its job placement rates."

The department also said that it expects the number of approved claims from former DeVry students to rise and that it "will seek to recoup the cost of the discharges from DeVry."

"The Department remains committed to giving borrowers discharges when the evidence shows their college violated the law and standards," said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a statement. "Students count on their colleges to be truthful¹⁰. Unfortunately, today's findings show too many instances in which students were misled into loans at institutions or programs that could not deliver what they'd promised."

DeVry has been in hot water before

The announcement is the latest standoff over years of tension between DeVry and the federal government. In August 2015, the Education Department demanded that DeVry either prove its common advertising¹¹ claim — that since 1975, 90% of its graduates seeking employment found jobs in their field within six months of graduation — or stop making it. In October 2016, DeVry said it lacked the data to substantiate¹² the claim and agreed to stop.

Then in December 2016, DeVry agreed to a $100 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over similar complaints that its advertising was deceptive¹³.

It was that 90% claim that the department used to justify¹⁴ its latest move, to approve DeVry borrower defense claims. The department says that after investigating, it found that DeVry's job placement rate was instead roughly 58% and that "more than half of the jobs included in the claimed 90 percent placement rate were held by students who obtained them well before graduating from DeVry and often before they even enrolled¹⁵."

"These jobs were not attributable to a DeVry education," the department said, "and their inclusion was contrary to the plain language of the 90 percent claim. Moreover, DeVry excluded from its calculation large numbers of graduates who were in fact actively¹⁶ looking for work simply because they did not conduct a search in the manner that the University's Career Services department preferred."

In spite of these findings, the department made clear that because DeVry stopped making this misleading claim after 2015, it will not lose access to the federal student aid program — a move that would be potentially devastating¹⁷ for a school like DeVry, where the vast majority of students receive federal loans.

In a statement to NPR, DeVry's senior director of university relations, Donna Shaults, wrote:

DeVry University is deeply committed to student success and has oriented our whole organization around helping¹⁸ people compete in a complex and changing labor¹⁹ market. As today's announcement calls out, any student claims date back to advertising that was used between 2008 and 2015, predating DeVry's establishment as an independent institution with a new Board and leadership.

Nonetheless, we do believe that the Department of Education mischaracterizes DeVry's calculation and disclosure of graduate outcomes in certain advertising, and we do not agree with the conclusions they have reached.

The pressure to help defrauded borrowers has been building

The Education Department has been under enormous legal and political pressure to help defrauded students. Much of that pressure began in June 2019, when the Project on Predatory Student Lending sued then-President Donald Trump²⁰'s Education Department (Sweet v. DeVos), demanding that it process the claims of more than 200,000 borrowers who said they had been defrauded by their colleges.

Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was an outspoken²¹ champion of the for-profit college sector²² and openly opposed using borrower defense to provide students with full or even partial loan relief. Under her watch, consideration of applications slowed, then stopped altogether.

In early 2020, after Sweet v. DeVos was provisionally settled, the department sent thousands of denials to borrowers, though these rejections²³ were vague and unexplained.

"We don't think their evidence was fairly considered, and we certainly don't think that they received an adequate explanation of why their claims were denied," says Eileen Connor, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending and lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

A judge agreed with Connor, and in late 2020, the department agreed to stop the blanket denials until the case was resolved.

That case, now Sweet v. Cardona, as well as the borrower defense backlog²⁴, has been hanging over the Biden administration like the sword of Damocles. According to federal data, more than 85,000 applications were awaiting adjudication in January 2021, and another 137,000 had been denied based on DeVos' interpretation²⁵ of the rule. Not only does Wednesday's announcement help the department make a dent¹ in that backlog, but it also allows the Biden administration to take credit for loan relief efforts that a trial or settlement in the Sweet case likely would have compelled.

Over the past year, Biden's Education Department has made modest progress reducing that backlog, announcing in June that it would approve another 18,000 ITT Technical Institute borrowers and, in July, more than 1,800 claims from former students at a trio of smaller schools.

But the most recent federal data on borrower defense claims shows the backlog, as of the end of September, was actually higher (nearly 88,000) than it was when Trump left office.

1 dent   

n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展

参考例句：

• I don't know how it came about but I've got a dent in the rear of my car.我不知道是怎么回事，但我的汽车后部有了一个凹痕。
• That dent is not big enough to be worth hammering out.那个凹陷不大，用不着把它锤平。

2 erasing   

v.擦掉( erase的现在分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He was like a sponge, erasing the past, soaking up the future. 他象一块海绵，挤出过去，吸进未来。 来自辞典例句
• Suddenly, fear overtook longing, erasing memories. 突然，恐惧淹没了渴望，泯灭了回忆。 来自辞典例句

3 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

4 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

6 defrauded   

v.诈取，骗取( defraud的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He defrauded his employers of thousands of dollars. 他诈取了他的雇主一大笔钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He defrauded them of their money. 他骗走了他们的钱。 来自辞典例句

7 defrauding   

v.诈取，骗取( defraud的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Second is the actor regards defrauding of the wealth as object. 第二，行为人以骗取钱财为目的。 来自互联网
• Therefore, DELL has the motive and economic purpose of intentionally defrauding the Chinese consumers. 因此，戴尔公司存在故意欺诈中国消费者的动机和经济目的。 来自互联网

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

9 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

10 truthful   

adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的

参考例句：

• You can count on him for a truthful report of the accident.你放心，他会对事故作出如实的报告的。
• I don't think you are being entirely truthful.我认为你并没全讲真话。

11 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

12 substantiate   

v.证实；证明...有根据

参考例句：

• There is little scientific evidence to substantiate the claims.这些主张几乎找不到科学依据来证实。
• These theories are used to substantiate the relationship between the phenomenons of the universe.这些学说是用来证实宇宙现象之间的关系。

13 deceptive   

adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• His appearance was deceptive.他的外表带有欺骗性。
• The storyline is deceptively simple.故事情节看似简单，其实不然。

14 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

15 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

17 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

18 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

19 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

20 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

21 outspoken   

adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的

参考例句：

• He was outspoken in his criticism.他在批评中直言不讳。
• She is an outspoken critic of the school system in this city.她是这座城市里学校制度的坦率的批评者。

22 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

23 rejections   

拒绝( rejection的名词复数 )； 摒弃； 剔除物； 排斥

参考例句：

• Most writers endure a number of rejections before being published. 大部分作家经历无数次的退稿才守得云开，作品得到发表。
• Supervise workers and monitors production quality to minimize rejections. 管理工人，监控生产质量，减少退货。

24 backlog   

n.积压未办之事

参考例句：

• It will take a month to clear the backlog of work.要花一个月的时间才能清理完积压的工作。
• Investment is needed to reduce the backlog of repairs.需要投资来減轻积压的维修工作。

25 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。