Department of Education offers $1.1 billion in loan forgiveness to ITT Tech students

The Department of Education will forgive $1.1 billion in federal loans for students who attended the now-defunct ITT Technical Institute but left after March 2008 without finishing their degree.

ITT Tech shut down in 2016, closing more than 130 schools after the Education Department said it could no longer enroll new students who needed federal loans and grants. Students had long accused the for-profit college of using fraudulent recruitment practices, and the Education Department launched an investigation. In a statement, the department said it found that "for years, ITT hid its true financial state from borrowers while luring many of them into taking out private loans with misleading and unaffordable terms that may have caused borrowers to leave school."

By forgiving the $1.1 billion in federal loans, about 115,000 former students will see their debt erased, Axios reports. There has been a push for the government to wipe out more student loans, and since January, the Education Department has forgiven $9.5 billion in loans, affecting more than 563,000 borrowers.

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