Hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers get $23 billion in debt forgiveness after class-action settlement

Hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers have gotten their debts forgiven, or soon will, due to a $23 billion class-action settlement with the U.S. Department of Education.

The student loan borrower plaintiffs said that their schools significantly misled them and that the Trump administration delayed delivering the relief to which they were entitled under a protection known as Borrower Defense. That program allows defrauded federal student borrowers to get their debt excused.

In late July, a federal appeals court denied Trump officials' latest request to postpone making a decision on a large swath of the applications, paving the way for another nearly 200,000 borrowers to get their student loans wiped. That brings the total number of borrowers to get their debts forgiven under the settlement to about 450,000.

The legal challenge played out over three presidential terms, its name changing from Sweet v. DeVos to Sweet v. Cardona to Sweet v. McMahon. One student loan borrower's debt swelled to roughly $400,000 from $250,000 while she waited for the Education Department to decide on her Borrower Defense claim, said Eileen Connor, the president and director of The Project on Predatory Student Lending, an advocacy group. PPSL brought the lawsuit against the Trump administration in 2019.

"It makes clear that the federal government cannot simply disregard borrowers' rights and its own legal obligations without consequence," Connor said.

The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.

In court documents from April, the Trump administration said it needed time to determine eligibility for relief among an "unexpectedly large" number of applicants that could lead to a "substantial windfall at taxpayer expense."

What consequences did borrowers face?

Dozens of schools were implicated in the Sweet settlement "for which the Department had significant evidence of institutional misconduct," Connor said. Many of the schools, but not all, were for-profit institutions that are now shuttered.

These colleges made false promises to student loan borrowers, including that their education would lead to stable careers, higher earnings and transferable credits, she said: "Instead, many were left with enormous debts, credentials employers did not respect, credits that would not transfer, and, in some cases, no degree at all."

People were denied mortgages and car financing because of their federal debts. Others delayed starting a family or postponed medical care, Connor added.

"Borrowers also described panic attacks, anxiety, depression and years of being unable to plan for the future," she said.

Who benefits from the settlement?

Eligibility for the Sweet settlement is based on what school a borrower attended and when they submitted their Borrower Defense application, Connor said. "It is not something one can newly qualify for today," she said.

If you had a claim pending with the Education Department in Nov. 2022, you may be included in the settlement class. But the relief also reaches certain borrowers whose applications were denied between Dec. 2019 and Oct. 2020.

You should be able to check when your Borrower Defense application was submitted at Studentaid.gov. The Education Department also notifies eligible borrowers.

The settlement only impacts federal student loans, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

"Private student loans do not qualify for Borrower Defense," Kantrowitz said — though nearly two dozen states maintain a tuition recovery funds program if you attended a for-profit school that closed.

How much will borrowers get in relief?

The average federal student loan balance cleared under the settlement exceeded $48,000, Connor said. "Individual amounts vary significantly, however, and many borrowers received substantially more or less," she added.

Borrowers who were eligible for the settlement may also qualify for a refund for any previous payments made on their debt. The typical refund for borrowers eligible for one is over $15,000, Connor said.

When does the relief come?

The deadline for a borrower's relief also depends on the details of their case and on when they applied for loan forgiveness, Connor said.

Under the terms of the settlement, the latest the Education Department can clear an eligible borrower's debt is June 15, 2027, Connor said. You're not required to make payments while you wait for the loan forgiveness.