New Call for Debt Relief Before Obama Leaves

December 6, 2016

The Debt Collective, an activist group and offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is calling on the Obama administration to provide debt relief for student loan borrowers who say they were defrauded by for-profit institutions before President Obama leaves office next year.

The organization posted a video Monday of Pam Hunt, a debt striker and former Corinthian Colleges student, who appealed to Obama directly to forgive the debt of former students alleging fraud by shuttered for-profits Corinthian, ITT Technical Institute and The Art Institutes. Hunt and other debt strikers say their best chance of debt relief is in the next two months — before the administration of Republican Donald Trump takes over in January.

“We’re appealing to you this one last time. This is, like, our last chance to get the justice we deserve,” she said. “Please forgive these debts before you leave office.”

In September, the Debt Collective announced it was organizing a debt strike by former students of ITT, who learned the week before that their campuses would be closing.

Later that month, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter to Education Secretary John B. King Jr. saying his department was not doing enough to assist former Corinthian students. Warren’s letter said nearly 80,000 former Corinthian students were eligible for debt relief but were in some form of debt collection. But King said it was not clear that fraud had occurred at every Corinthian campus and the department believed students must personally attest that they were defrauded as part of the debt relief process.