The U.S. Education Department is promising to process student loan forgiveness claims for nearly 170,000 borrowers within 18 months as part of a proposed settlement announced Friday in a federal lawsuit.
The suit alleges that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos illegally stalled a program known as borrower defense to repayment, which promises to forgive federal student loans for borrowers who are cheated by their colleges.
When the lawsuit was filed in June 2019, it had been a year since the department issued a final decision on any claim. Most of the borrowers awaiting decisions attended for-profit colleges, and some have been waiting more than four years for a decision.