Biden admin cancels $3.9 billion in student loans for ITT Tech students

The Department of Education on Tuesday announced that it was cancelling $3.9 billion in student loan debt for attendees of ITT Technical Institute, a now-defunct college that allegedly defrauded its students.

“It is time for student borrowers to stop shouldering the burden from ITT’s years of lies and false promises,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said, per the New York Daily News. “The evidence shows that for years, ITT’s leaders intentionally misled students about the quality of their programs in order to profit off federal student loan programs, with no regard for the hardship this would cause.”

The $3.9 billion covers 208,000 students who attended ITT Technical Institute from Jan. 1, 2005 until it closed down in September 2016.

The Department noted that the cancellation will be automatic, meaning ITT Tech students will not need to apply to have their debt cancelled.

In June of this year, the Biden administration cancelled roughly $6 billion in student debt for 200,000 borrowers who attended one of 150 schools named in a lawsuit for allegedly defrauding their students.

Moreover, earlier that month, it cancelled the debt of 560,000 Corinthian Colleges attendees after the Department of Education found the system misled its students about its job placement rates.

"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," Cardona said at the time. "While our actions today will relieve Corinthian Colleges' victims of their burdens."

As with ITT Tech, the Corinthian Colleges borrowers did not need to apply and received automatic compensation from the government, even if they had completely paid off their loans.