Despite pressure from the Democratic Party’s hard-left fringe, President Joe Biden is correctly slow-walking proposals to grant relief for college graduates mired in student-loan debt. But one loan-forgiveness decision he took recently was spot on: to grant full relief to the 560,000 students defrauded by the for-profit Corinthian University.
Students who were scammed by Corinthian’s diploma factory deserve to have their grievances addressed separately from others who knowingly immersed themselves in debt and got a legitimate college education in return. Someone who is swindled into buying a junk car with no engine is not equivalent to someone who buys a new car on credit then realizes the monthly payments are too high for the income the buyer is earning.
The $5.8 billion forgiveness program for former Corinthian students acknowledges that the university fabricated performance records, including job-placement rates. Corinthian far oversold the value of its diploma. Around 560,000 students took out federally backed loans between 1995 and 2015. Corinthian once boasted 105 campuses and had a peak enrollment of 110,000 students.
The scam came to an end after then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris sued in 2013. Now students will be able to get all remaining debt to Corinthian canceled, but they still must apply for reimbursement for debt already paid if they feel they were defrauded.
Inspired in part by Corinthian’s seeming success, then-businessman Donald…
