Student Loans

This is the latest tranche under borrower defense to repayment rules, the mechanism that lets defrauded students at collapsed for-profit colleges get federal loans discharged, and 170,000 more approvals adds meaningfully to the multi-billion-dollar total already forgiven since the programme's expansion. The pattern here matters for anyone tracking US student debt as a macro drag: each wave of discharges reduces outstanding federal loan balances without touching the underlying for-profit college accountability problem that created the fraud in the first place. Expect the same institutions' former students to keep filing claims in future rounds.

The Student Loans Company is demanding immediate repayment of £190 million from 22,000 students who were incorrectly issued maintenance loans for weekend-only courses at 15 franchised university providers. The courses were misclassified as distance learning when they should have been ineligible for maintenance support, affecting institutions including London Metropolitan and Solent University. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson accused universities of "incompetence" while students who signed up "in good faith" face direct debit plans for thousands of pounds and are considering legal action.