Gov. Larry Hogan and the Maryland General Assembly have made the state the first in the nation to pass important protections for veterans who often fall prey to deceptive marketing practices of failing for-profit colleges.
The new law closed a loophole in federal rules governing federal education benefits that incentivize for-profit colleges to target veterans like Lycretia Davis, an Army veteran from Oxon Hill, whom my nonprofit organization is helping.
Ms. Davis had her dreams of being a full-time graphic designer dashed by American InterContinental University (AIU), a for-profit online school based in Illinois. The school’s academic program was substandard, its job placement promises empty and its financial practices misleading. The school refused to confer her diploma in a dispute over a loan she says she never agreed to. She left with no job and tens of thousands of dollars in questionable debt.
Seven years later, AIU finally agreed to grant her degree after its parent company, Career Education Corporation, settled a lawsuit with 48 state attorneys general and Washington for deceiving students nationwide. The company paid nearly $500 million in student debt forgiveness, including that of Ms. Davis.