In this week’s episode of The Liberty Belles, Lynne and Suzanne look closer at “The States and American Rescue Plan’s ESSER (Elementary and Secondary State Emergency Relief Funds) press release, which affects institutes of “higher learning” as well as K-12 schools. This rolls into the continued plan, begun under the Obama administration – continued under the Trump administration – and now culminating under the Biden regime, to forgive student loans that will in turn affect some students’ taxes, meaning tax forgiveness on that amount in some instances.
This loan forgiveness has been slotted to eliminate those federal loan debts students incurred because of being misled, defrauded, or harmed in any other way by the predatory or illegal practices of the institution attended, which is usually for-profit institutions. Some of the institutions involved in these practices included ITT Technical Institute, Corinthian colleges, the Art Institutes, Salter College, Brooks Institute of Photography, as well as others. According to the lawsuit “Sweet v. Cardona”, “the schools falsely promised students high paying jobs, state-of-the-art vocational training, and long and fulfilling careers. In reviewing the resources on this student loan forgiveness and lawsuit, the Belles had many questions that are left unanswered since it appears those questions have not been addressed in this situation.
According to National Law Review, some of these student loans could even be discharged via bankruptcy! In fact, the Second circuit joined both the Tenth and Fifth circuits decisions that this indeed could be the case. Remember, this involves unethical, immoral, illegal, predatory practices by some institutions upon students who incurred loans for institutes of higher learning.
Again, this led to many questions that ultimately have no answers at this point. In the case of ITT Technical Institute, who hid their financial troubles for years, why was it not responsible for the restitution of those funds, garnered from students who incurred federal debt, back to the government? Government should not be lending/granting money for educational purposes to anyone since it is not authorized to do so in the Constitution for the united States of America. These students were definitely victims of wrong-doing, but the justice is not in forgiving the debt; the justice is holding the perpetrator accountable for their wrong-doing and having that perpetrator restore the money obtained through their misrepresentation, not to the student, but to the government, who gets the money from the taxpayers.
