Borrowers Defrauded by For-Profit Colleges Wait 5+ Years for Borrower Defense Decisions While the Department Tries to Renege on Its Own Settlement

More than 200,000 borrowers who attended for-profit colleges like ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges, DeVry, and the Art Institutes filed Borrower Defense to Repayment claims alleging institutional fraud, and while 1.7 million borrowers have eventually received some relief, the current Department of Education has attempted to renege on the Sweet v. McMahon settlement (originally Sweet v. Cardona, settled June 2022) that promised relief to class members, and a court-imposed April 15, 2026 deadline for processing remaining claims is approaching with massive backlogs. Why it matters: borrowers attended institutions that were proven to have committed fraud (Corinthian Colleges paid a $30 million fine; DeVry settled FTC charges for $100 million), so they hold degrees that employers do not value and debt for education they were deceived into purchasing, so while their claims languish for years, interest capitalizes on their balances, so many have already defaulted and face collections on fraudulent debt, so the government is effectively collecting on behalf of institutions it has itself found to be fraudulent. The structural root cause is that Borrower Defense regulations have been rewritten by every administration since 2016 (Obama 2016 rule, DeVos 2019 revision, Biden 2022 revision, current administration's attempted rollback), creating perpetual legal uncertainty that delays adjudication and leaves borrowers in indefinite limbo.