A
group of former students defrauded by for-profit colleges is alleging
in court that the Education Department illegally obtained and used their
Social Security data to limit their student loan relief.
The
Education Department announced in December that it will start granting
some former students at the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges only partial
federal student loan forgiveness, in part to save taxpayers' money. The
agency said it will use students' earnings data to determine how much
of their loans to forgive.
Some students have already received notices from the department that only 50% or less of their loan will be wiped out.
A
motion filed by several former Corinthian students over the weekend
alleges that the Education Department obtained the earnings figures from
the Social Security Administration in violation of several laws as well
as the Constitution. Attorneys with the Project on Predatory Student
Lending at Harvard University representing the students say the agency
should have turned to the students for their data and should have
notified them of its actions in order to give them a chance to react. ...
The Social Security Administration did not reply to requests for comment.
The Obama administration went hard after for-profit colleges accused of
fraud, closing down Corinthian and other major chains and tightening
regulations for those schools. The administration also spent $550
million to fully forgive student loans for tens of thousands of
students.
[Secretary of Education Betsy] DeVos has said the Obama regulations were unfair and is writing new
ones. She has said her new system of partial loan forgiveness will be
fairer to students and taxpayers.
I think these students ought to get full relief but that's not my point here. There are laws concerning inter-agency data releases. I'm no expert on them but this data release doesn't sound kosher.
you make a stupid choice then you pay the price. Buy a stupid car on a loan, you pay for it, this is no different, no forgiveness, personal responsibility. Moral of the story, don't do stupid things.
ReplyDelete@11:17 Corinthian Colleges students received federal student loans. The Higher Education Act of 1965 states the Secretary of Education will, under appropriate circumstances, discharge student loans (false and misleading advertisements by the facility is a listed example).
ReplyDeleteYou can argue for personal responsibility, but I seen no reason the students are not eligible for student loan discharge as a matter of law. As to whether the department of education is acting appropriately in only discharging student loans to the extent the student's income suggests is appropriate, I'm not sure how the personal responsibility point doesn't cut directly against 11:17's comment. The department of education is only forgiving based on limited earnings, not based on actual hardship suffered.
Congress needs to start regulating big data. Data is the new gold rush and right now the tech companies operate in a virtual wild west. We citizens need our privacy and information protected. It is time for Congress to bring in law and order to the cyber range.
ReplyDeleteUsually, SSA has to defer to the IRS regarding releasing wage data for non-program purposes since the internal revenue code governs that. Not familiar if there is a statute that allows such a release, but if there is an existing memo with DOE, it's likely this use by DOE falls under DOEs program use. THey are administering the education act or whatever law this falls under.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not SSA can release the data is, in large part, based upon the "routine uses" for each "system of records" it publishes pursuant to the Privacy Act. These routine use identifications, which are published in the Federal Register, outline the many ways that SSA can legally release data, without informing the subject of that data. Rather than wild speculation, I'd suggest that anyone interested identify the "system of records" that contains the released data and then read the routine use that accompanies the system of records. As mentioned before, earnings records that SSA maintains are actually provided by the IRS under an internal governmental agreement (this agreement may also be something that an inquiring mind may want to seek out to determine the "right" of SSA to release data provided by IRS). It is this agreement that IRS used a few years ago to cajole SSA into not releasing earnings queries (DEQY) to Vocational Experts in disability hearings.
ReplyDelete