On June 2, Vice President Kamala Harris announced the historic cancellation of nearly $6 billion in student loans for students who went to Corinthian Colleges. The university was for-profit and made many false promises to its prospective students. The schools targeted isolated individuals with low self-esteem, according to the federal investigation. The school advertised on BET and most of its students were minorities. Harris began investigating Corinthian when she worked for the state of California.
On the day the announcement was made, Rohini Kosoglu, Domestic Policy Advisor to the President, sat with rolling out to discuss the loan forgiveness and what it could mean for other future student loan debt as well.
What is your overall reaction to this historic announcement?
For those who don’t know … the practices Corinthian engaged in terms of deceptive and fraudulent practices, over-promising on job placements, targeting single mothers, single fathers, veterans, people living at or below the poverty line and so many others [were problematic]. We’re able to come to a historic resolution today in terms of having their student loans actually canceled.
The culmination of today goes back many, many years with Corinthian College. To add some color to it, internal documents show they were targeting people based on whether they were “isolated” or whether there was “low self-esteem,” these are words in their own documents. So today, half a million people around the country they’re going to see lower costs as a result of this action today.
How can the government absorb the near-$6 billion of canceled debt?
This is executive action President Biden and Vice President Harris are taking, in terms of the Department of Education and their long-standing servicing of these loans. Just to take a step back, the President and Vice President, since day one, have hit pause on student loans for [people] around the country. In terms of the current loan forgiveness, that has already happened for people around the country. We’re talking about everyday people, veterans those in public service.
The announcement today brings us to $25 billion in terms of total student loan forgiveness. This has been an ongoing conversation.This administration has taken action in terms of students around the country and former students around the country, but today we are focused on half a million people that will see finally begin to [get] some relief.
This administration made promises on the campaign trail to forgive all student loans. For the people reading or watching this story right now, what does that mean for their loans?
I’m not going to get out ahead of the President or the Vice President on that, so I will let them have these conversations, but they are ongoing. What I can tell you is that, in terms of the broader context, with the economy we’ve had since day one, they have recognized student loans are an increasing cost, which is why the President took the step to put a student loan pause [on] for so many millions of people around the country.
