More than 1,000 Kansas students will receive $2.1 million in student loan forgiveness under the terms of a settlement reached Thursday, Jan. 3, with the Career Education Corporation (CEC), Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in a statement.
CEC is a for-profit education company based in Illinois that currently offers primarily online courses through American InterContinental University and Colorado Technical University.
After receiving numerous complaints from students and a critical report on “for-profit” education by the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, a group of attorneys general, including Schmidt, launched an investigation into CEC in January 2014.
Schmidt says investigations revealed that CEC lured prospective students into its programs and that many students left the program with unfulfilled promises and sometimes tremendous debt.
Nationwide, the agreement requires the “for-profit” college company to forgive almost $5 million in outstanding loan debt held by more than 66,000 former students.
Eligible students will receive a letter from CEC within 60 days advising them that CEC will no longer attempt to collect student debt forgiven under the terms of this settlement.
