Former students of defunct ITT Tech to receive $330 million in private student-loan forgiveness – The Washington Post
Forty-eight state attorneys general and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have secured more than $330 million in private student-loan forgiveness for 35,000 former students of ITT Technical Institutes.
A judgment order entered Tuesday puts to rest a 2014 lawsuit accusing the defunct for-profit chain of steering students into predatory loans. PEAKS Trust, a private loan program run by ITT Tech and affiliated with Deutsche Bank entities, has agreed to forgo the collection of the outstanding education debt from ITT Tech students. It will also ask credit-reporting agencies to delete references to those loans from the credit reports of affected borrowers.
Eligible borrowers will be notified by PEAKS or their loan servicer and need to do nothing to receive forgiveness. At least 1,100 former ITT Tech students in Maryland will receive relief, while 1,840 borrowers in Virginia will have their private loans canceled.
“Maryland students were deceived when they were pressured into taking on these predatory loans,” Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) said in a statement Tuesday. “PEAKS will be required by this settlement to provide debt relief to Maryland students who we allege were misled while they were working hard to further their education.”