Finance

US Department of Education: New Federal Laws to Help Students Get Their College Loans Erased

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New regulations on student loans have been finalized and issued by the government on Friday, in order to make it easier for the students to get their debts forgiven in instances when their schools have committed misconduct and fraud.

These new laws by the Obama administration target to make a difference in the system so that the loans will be erased if a school has used illegal methods and tactics to influence the students to borrow money to be able to get a higher education.

"To protect students from the start, the regulations seek to deter institutions from engaging in predatory behavior or otherwise exposing the government to risk," Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell said in a statement. "For students who are injured by an institution's conduct, these regulations provide a clear path to relief with all of their rights intact, and restore their right to sue."

The schools who also force the students to agree that they will not sue over misconduct will be banned. "Today's regulations build on that progress by ensuring that students who are lied to and mistreated by their school get the relief they are owed, and that schools that harm students are held responsible for their behavior," Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said in a statement.

These new rules also paved the way for a new process that will enable the Department of Education to be able to forgive the debts of those who did not even apply for loan forgiveness during the instances when there is a widespread of misconduct.

The proposal of these new regulations have been labelled as imbalanced by the for-profit colleges and said that it will shut down their industry. Under the Obama administration, there has already been $247 million worth of loans cleared with more than 15,000 student claims of misconduct approved.

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