If you went to DeVry, you might have already gotten money back from the FTC. That’s thanks to a 2016 FTC settlement with the school over allegations that it didn’t tell the truth about how likely it was that its grads could get jobs in their field, or how much they’d earn compared to grads from other colleges. But now, you might be eligible to get your DeVry federal student loan debt discharged, thanks to recent actions taken by the Department of Education.
In 2017 and 2019, the FTC sent nearly $50 million in refunds to about 173,000 students that DeVry deceived — and, thanks to the case, DeVry also forgave $50.6 million that students owed to DeVry. But that’s not the end of the story. Just last week, the Department of Education announced that it has discharged the federal student loan debt of about 1,800 former DeVry students who were deceived by DeVry’s job claims. But those are just the people who’ve already submitted a claim to the Department of Education (ED) so far, through an application process called “borrower defense to repayment.” If you already submitted a claim to get your DeVry federal loans discharged, check your status under “Manage My Applications” on ED’s borrower defense page.
That’s still not the end of the story. If you’re a DeVry student who believed the school’s job claims, and your decision to go to DeVry was influenced by them, you can still apply to have your federal loans forgiven. You’ll need your FSA ID to get started at ED’s borrower defense page. Fill out the form, tell your story, and explain how those job placement claims affected your decision. Then submit.
But wait, there’s still more to the story! If you already got a refund from the FTC’s DeVry settlement fund, you can still apply for federal loan discharge from ED. In fact, be sure to mention it when you fill out your claim form.
Learn more about the FTC’s refunds under the DeVry settlement, and check out your options for filing a borrower defense claim.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.
Does anyone know when claims will start to be processed?
What about for people who transfer/consolidated their federal loan to private loans?
The borrowers defense request page is unable to process requests. How can we submit claims if the Federal Student Aid site isnt working?
I applied for the fedund a few years ago. I used my GI Bill to attend DeVry. I haven't received a refund yet.
In reply to I applied for the fedund a… by Kefentse Kowan…
I had the same issue.
If I paid off all my loans already, can I get paid back for it?
How long would it take to get a decision on if you qualify to receive payment?
I was party to the devry lawsuit and put in my borrower's defense application January of 2016. They did not make a decision until June of 2020 and their decision was to deny me. The representative told me a mistake had been made on their part and I needed to resubmit.i did, and my second application was denied 3 weeks later. No one can tell me what the mistake was, but i put in An foia request for that initial call and i was not misunderstanding what the representative said to me, my application was not processed correctly. I then had to put in a request for reconsideration. Everytime I call to check the status i am told something is going to be done that never gets followed through with. I cant get a contact of anyone who can actually help me. This has turned into 6-year nightmare. They have no time limits on processing the applications and leave applicants waiting in limbo for years.