Student-loan forgiveness halted:

Discovery

Durbin

Schumer

The US Education Department has not approved any applications for studentloan forgiveness in cases of possible fraud since President Donald Trump took office, according to records sent to an Illinois senator.

Democratic Sen Richard Durbin released those records Wednesday and blasted the department for its inaction and for a June decision to delay and rewrite Obama-era rules that would have made it easier for students to get loans forgiven if they were deceived by their schools.

“This response shows that while the Department of Education has illegally delayed the new borrower defense rule, it has also stopped processing federal student loan relief under current regulations for tens of thousands of defrauded borrowers,” Durbin said in a statement. “The department can’t ignore these borrowers any longer.”

Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Durbin and four other Democratic senators sent a series of questions to the department on May 17 amid concerns that the pipeline to student-loan forgiveness had stalled under the Trump administration. Also signing the letter were Sen Patty Murray of Washington, Sen Chuck Schumer of New York, Sen Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Sen Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Under President Barack Obama, the department approved more than 28,000 claims for loan forgiveness from former students of Corinthian Colleges, a chain of for-profit colleges that closed in 2015 amid accusations that it falsified job-placement data and altered student grades. Those claims topped $558 million.

But in the letter responding to Durbin’s questions, Acting Under Secretary James Manning wrote that “no borrower defense applications have been approved between Jan 20, 2017, and today.”