Maximus AidVantage Contracts with the US Department of Education Publicly Available

The Higher Education Inquirer has received all the current contracts between the US Department of Education and Maximus/AidVantage through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Maximus serves millions of student loan debtors and has faced increased scrutiny (and loss of revenues) for not fulfilling their duties on time. 

The FOIA response (23-01436-F) consists of a zip file of 998 pages in 5 separate files. HEI is sharing this information with any news outlet or organization for free, however we would appreciate an acknowledgement of the source. 

We have already reached out to a number of organizations, including the Student Borrower Protection Center, the Debt Collective, the Project on Predatory Lending, the NY Times, ProPublica, and Democracy Now!  We have also posted this article at the r/BorrowerDefense subreddit. 

Student Stories: Understanding the Human Impact of For-profit Colleges (Project on Predatory Student Lending)

For decades, the predatory for-profit college industry has exploited the promise of higher education, at the expense of students who are trying to build a better life.  

These are their stories. Read a letter from 5,721 student borrowers who were the victims of fraud and misconduct here sent to members of Congress, the Department of Education, and White House officials on November 22, 2024.

Read all of the stories here. 

 

 

Related link:

List of Schools with Strong Indicators of Misconduct, Evidence for Borrower Defense Claims

 

Trump Wants Musk to Cut Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. Start With Taxpayer-Funded Scam Colleges. (David Halperin)

I spoke today at a Capitol Hill press event organized by the Debt Collective. Other speakers, who included senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Ed Markey (D-MA), Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Ashley Pizzuti and Valerie Scott, two of the student borrowers who organized the event, properly focused on the urgency of the Biden administration cancelling federal student loan debt for borrowers defrauded by predatory for-profit colleges. I took a detour and discussed what the incoming Trump administration should do about those colleges if it actually does care, which Trump claims to, about fighting waste, fraud, and abuse with federal tax dollars.

Here’s what I said:

Thank you to Rep. Waters, and senators Markey and Durbin, and thank you, Ashley, and all the borrowers who were ripped off by predatory colleges and now are fighting back, asking for justice and asking for your financial lives back. The Biden administration should act right now to grant broad debt relief to struggling borrowers, especially the victims of predatory schools.

I want to discuss what the incoming Trump administrations should do.

Trump says he will create a new department run by Elon Musk to go after waste fraud abuse.

Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk, here is some real waste fraud and abuse: low quality, high priced for profit colleges, sold through deception, that have received literally hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars and have left many students worse off than when they started – buried in debt and without the careers they sought.

The Biden administration, like the Obama administration, fought against this blatant waste, fraud, and abuse by creating performance standards for schools getting taxpayer dollars. That’s called the gainful employment rule.

They created the borrower defense rule that gives colleges skin in the game – if they scam students, students get relief, and the government can try to recoup the money.

President Biden also signed a bipartisan bill to reform the federal 90-10 law to prevent the extreme targeting by predatory schools of veterans and service members.

The first Trump administration, unfortunately, went in the opposite direction. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos staffed her department with former for-profit college executives and got rid of the gainful employment and borrower defense rules. She shut down her department’s enforcement team fighting against deceptive practices.

And when veterans groups pushed in 2020 for the 90-10 reform bill I mentioned, a Fox News host named Pete Hegseth took money from the for-profit college industry to make sure his friend Trump would oppose it.

Why are so many Republicans obedient to this corrupt industry that harms veterans, single moms, rural people, people of color, immigrants, the elderly, and others struggling to build better lives?

Is it really worth the few hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions this industry provides?

Whatever the reason, it’s time for this madness to stop. Or else another generation of victims will be right here in 10 years seeking relief from another mountain of debt.



I hope senators ask Trump’s new secretary of education nominee, Linda McMahon, to commit in concrete ways to standing up for America’s students — and not for a predatory industry that has for decades abused students and cheated taxpayers.

[Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Republic Report.] 

FOR-PROFIT BORROWERS ACTION on 12/4 in DC (Debt Collective)

Students who attended predatory, for-profit schools have had enough – and we are on the march for justice. These students have been failed twice: first by the scam schools who saddled them with crushing debt, and second, by the Department of Education who has delayed discharging these unjust debts.

On 12/4 we are headed to Washington DC to demand they cancel the loans of borrowers who went to schools with serious misconduct evidence against them and to make sure the promised cancellation is done before the next administration.

Is this you? Want to come to DC with us to light some fires?

We will be holding a press conference at The Capitol at 12pm with several organizations and congressional members ready to support us. Then heading to the DOE with our bullhorns.

We need for-profit borrowers to show up en masse.

We have Sen. Durbin, Sen. Markey, Rep. Waters, many members of the HELP committee along with major student loan orgs backing us in this action.

We know this is a tight turn around, we need to get the DOE time to actually do what they need to do.

If you are interested in joining, we have a budget to pay up to $200 towards your travel costs.

WHEN: DECEMBER 4th at 12pm

WHERE: Washington DC at the Capitol Building

Sign up using the form below for further details:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf2RrZUjNZ3cBAlLpceosBWyj88eiOnQyNmCTC1V4ZfaqbY-A/viewform?usp=sf_link

If you have questions please email Ashley@thedebtcollective.org

PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH OTHER FOR-PROFIT BORROWERS IN YOUR LIFE

We know one thing: we can’t afford to wait.

History is watching,
XOXO
The Debt Collective

$6 Billion Student Loan Reimbursement Program Launching in Connecticut (NBC Connecticut)

Connecticut is launching a pilot program for student loan reimbursement.The program was part of a bipartisan effort passed by the state legislature, and in response to the overwhelming number of Connecticut residents struggling with their loans. The Office of High Education projects 100,000 borrowers are eligible to enroll when the program begins on January 1, 2025.

The Office of Higher Education may approve the participation of any person in the student loan reimbursement program who (PA 24-81): 

1. Must have graduated from a Connecticut state public or private college or university with a bachelor’s or associate degree or have an occupational/professional license or certificate or left such college in good standing and was granted a hardship waiver by the Office of Higher Education.
2. Must be a Connecticut resident for at least five years.
3. Must have a Connecticut adjusted gross income of not more than $125,000 for single applicants and file a federal tax return as unmarried or have a Connecticut adjusted gross income of not more than $175,000 for married applicants and file a federal tax return as head of household, married filing jointly or a surviving spouse.
4. Must have an outstanding student loan balance and made payments in 2024 toward federal direct loans, federal direct PLUS loans, federal Perkins loans, CHESLA loan or other state’s sponsored student loan, or a private student loan.
5. Must have volunteered for at least 50 hours at a Connecticut nonprofit organization that is registered with the Department of Consumer Protection, municipal government, served on the Board of Directors for a nonprofit organization or has military service after Jan. 1, 2024.

Idaho-University of Phoenix deal has fallen below the radar

For more than four months, neither the University of Idaho nor the University of Phoenix have reported on the status of the proposed deal between the two parties. The last local media report, from the Idaho Ed News came in July, when the University of Phoenix said they were still committed to partnering with Idaho.

The University of Idaho's University of Phoenix Affiliation FAQ page has not been updated and some of the information is obviously outdated. For example, the webpage said that the UI-UoPX sale was expected to be consummated in early 2024. That did not happen.    

 

Screen shot of the University of Phoenix Affiliation FAQ on November 9, 2024. 

Legislative and judicial barriers have delayed the acquisition and the deal remains in limbo. 

In June, the U of I Board of Regents extended the Asset Purchase Agreement through June 10, 2025. The extension allows the University of Idaho to continue negotiating with the University of Phoenix and to incorporate feedback from stakeholders. It would appear that any sale would require approval from the Idaho Legislature, which meets again in January 2025. In the interim, many important questions remain unanswered.

Despite its commitment, Apollo Global Management, the University of Phoenix's parent company, could sell the school to another buyer. But there has been no public mention (or even hints) of an alternative suitor. Since 2021, Apollo has tried selling the school to a number of buyers, most notably Tuskegee University, UMass Global, and the University of Arkansas System. The only deal to be made public before Idaho was in Arkansas, where concerns about the sale led to the deal falling through.

Information on how the school could be purchased continues to be limited. After a previous bond deal in Arizona fell through, the National Finance Authority (NFA) agreed to participate in the UI-UoPX financing. But there is no public information about how the bonds would be structured. Moody's previously said the $685 million purchase could result in a "multi-notch downgrade" in the University of Idaho's bond rating. 

According to the US Department of Education, more than 900,000 University of Phoenix debtors owe about $21.6B in federal student loan debt. And there have been more than 73,000 Borrower Defense to Repayment (fraud) claims made against the school.

The University of Idaho has previously said that any federal obligations for Borrower Defense to Repayment claims would be handled in court, even though more than 19,000 cases have already been settled in federal court, in favor of the student loan debtors. No matter how this could be handled legally, lawsuits related to the University of Phoenix could tarnish the image of the University of Idaho.