Vice President Harris announces forgiveness of Corinthian Colleges student debt

June 2 (UPI) -- Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday announced the Education Department's plan to cancel the remaining federal student loan debt of borrowers who attended Corinthian College, totaling $5.8 billion.

The department said the discharge will cover every student who took out loans to attend Corinthian, from its founding in 1995 until its closure in 2015.

Harris filed a lawsuit against the private for-profit college in 2016 when she was California attorney general for misrepresenting the students job prospects and other deceptive marketing practices.

"As of today, every student deceived, defrauded and driven into debt by Corinthian Colleges can rest assured that the Biden-Harris administration has their back and will discharge their federal student loans," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

"For far too long, Corinthian engaged in the wholesale financial exploitation of students, misleading them into taking on more and more debt to pay for promises they would never keep.

"While our actions today will relieve Corinthian Colleges' victims of their burdens, the Department of Education is actively ramping up oversight to better protect today's students from tactics and make sure that for-profit institutions -- and the corporations that own them -- never again get away with such abuse."

Thursday's announcement was the Biden administration's latest salvo against for-profit colleges for their marketing and recruiting practices.

In February, it granted $415 million in student loan forgiveness to nearly 16,000 borrowers who were misled by for-profit colleges, including DeVry University, Westwood College, ITT Technical Institute's nursing program and the Minnesota School of Business/Globe University.

A statement from the Education Department said Corinthian misrepresented to borrowers who attended its Everest, Heald College and WyoTech campuses about their ability to find a job using their Corinthian degree.

"The department also later found that Corinthian misrepresented students' ability to transfer credits over the same period at all Everest campuses, except the few that had regional accreditation, the WyoTech campus in Laramie, Wyo. and for borrowers who enrolled in certain programs at Heald campuses in California.