New Documents Back Claim That Education Department Killed Website Meant to Help Defrauded Students – US News
Federal education officials emphatically denied a whistleblower claim that they intentionally scuttled a tool to help defrauded students get loan forgiveness. Newly released documents tell a different story.
HOUSE DEMOCRATS released new documents Tuesday detailing how high-ranking Education Department officials froze the development of a website that its Federal Student Aid office designed to help students who have been defrauded by their colleges apply for loan forgiveness, arguing the tool made the process too easy.
“We are deeply troubled that the Department of Education halted a web tool to help simplify and streamline the process for defrauded students applying for relief,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, the chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, said in a joint statement they released alongside 12 pages of new documents they say prove department officials attempted to block the website.
“Today, we are releasing further evidence that the Department of Education continues to undermine and harm these defrauded students at every turn,” the Democratic members said.
The documents made public by Maloney and Scott include change orders to the federal contract between the Education Department and Accenture, the contractor hired to produce the new website, as well as emails between Federal Students Aid employees dated May 21, 2020, that include repeated directives to halt work on the website, including “a request to stop work,” “delay the implementation,” “deferred to a later release” and “all work on borrower defense … should stop for now.”