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Recently, someone filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the US Department of Education. The requester asked how many borrower defense claims have been filed against the University of Phoenix (UP), and how were these claims resolved?

DOE’s FOIA Service Center sent back a reply, and the response is interesting. More than 69,000 UP students have filed borrower defense claims against the for-profit school over the past seven years. Of these, approximately 20,000 claims were denied, and zero have been approved.

Borrower Claims Defense DOE has complaints filed by students who claim that their college misled them in some way about the education provided by the college. For example, the College may provide false information about:

[T]he transferability of credits, placement rates, completion and exit rates, future earning potential of graduates, career services, cost of attendance, amount of federal student aid, and accreditation status. , , ,

If the DOE concludes that a student’s complaint is valid, it will cancel that student’s federal college loans.

President Biden’s DOE borrower has been receptive to defense claims and almost canceled 890,000 people owe $14 billion in student loans who attended for-profit colleges.

In Sweet V. cardonaDOE settles class action suit offering loan relief to more than 200,000 students 150 for-profit colleges, The cost of the settlement was $6 billion.

Several well-known for-profit schools were named for that settlement, including Dewey University, Grand Canyon University, and Walden University. The University of Phoenix was dropped. Why?

probably because the owner of UP Apollo Global Management And this wisteria groupTwo private equity firms with significant political connections.

Marty Nesbitt Co-CEO of Wisteria. He is a close personal friend of President Obama and served as treasurer for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Currently, he is the President of the Obama Foundation, which is in charge of planning the Obama Presidential Center.

Mark Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, has contributed significantly to this both Democratic and Republican politicians, according to a 2021 ArticlesApollo has earned $16 million in political contributions since 1990 and spent $34 million on lobbyists since 1998 (citing OpenSecrets.org).

On the other hand, perhaps the University of Phoenix has never misled anyone or done anything wrong in the past seven years. This would explain why 69,000 students or alumni have filed borrower defense claims against UP since 2016, and none have been declared valid by the DOE.

Marty Nesbitt, Co-CEO of Wisteria Group



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