Because Corinthian Colleges, Inc., is a for-profit school with few defenders, the debt-forgiveness actions of the Department of Education are proceeding as if they were of little consequence. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that already 3,000 former Corinthian students have had their debt forgiven at a taxpayer cost of $40 million. And 8,000 more are waiting in the wings.

The rationale for doing this strikes me as bizarre and with potentially severe long-run consequences. If Corinthian Colleges defrauded students, then the students should sue Corinthian College, not the federal government. But the Department of Education has hired four more lawyers, has already promised forgiveness of loans to about 2,000 additional students, and seems to be treating these requests for forgiveness in a cattle-car manner (“considering them in batches whenever possible”).

Corinthian Colleges (which had schools under various names such as Everest and Heald) was forced to close down when the Dept. of Education slowed down its payments of student loans to Corinthian.

What did Corinthian do that led the department to force the school out of business? According to a 2014 DoE news release, “the company failed to address concerns about its practices, including falsifying job placement data used in marketing claims to prospective students and allegations of altered grades and attendance.”

It seems to me that there have been many charges that law schools have made false claims about job placements. Is the DoE cracking down on them?

And, as one commenter to the article asked, “What about the students who didn’t borrow and paid out-of-pocket?” They might actually have to prove fraud. Big Brother isn’t there to help them.