Corinthia College, Again

There was an item in the news today about former students of the for-profit Corinthian College banding together to refuse to pay their student loans.

The group, initially dubbed the Corinthian 15, sent a letter to the Department of Education last month, saying they would stop paying the federal student loans they took out to pay to attend various outposts of Corinthian Colleges, a chain of for-profit colleges. Under a deal with Department of Education last year, the company agreed to shut down or sell its schools last year amid allegations the company lured students by advertising dubious job prospects and career services.

The interest rate of the loans was higher than that offered by federal student loan programs; and the tuition costs were higher than one would find at comparable schools. But that's not the worst of it.

Last summer, federal regulators forced Corinthian to either shutter or sell the majority of its 100-plus campuses after allegations it had falsified student job placement data and pressured students to take out costly private loans. When Corinthian sold its remaining campuses in a $24 million deal to student loan servicing company Zenyth, Zenyth agreed to forgive $480 million worth of private student loan debt incurred by Corinthian students. But students who took out federal loans to pay for school have to meet a certain set of criteria to be considered for loan forgiveness. In a nutshell, they would have had to be currently or recently enrolled at campuses that were shut down last year.

The number of protesters has swelled over 100, and are backed by an Occupy group (Who knew they were still around?) calling itself the Debt Collective. However this story turns out, it's something to keep in mind as Teapublicans rush to dismantle public education in favor of for-profit private enterprise. That includes you, Darth Snotwalker.

Which has nothing much to do with this cartoon strip I drew for the UW-Parkside Ranger some 30 years ago or so, except for the similarity of the college name. (Click on the image to embiggenify.)

My Corinthian College cartoons veered from the topical to silly ones like this old thing. (I posted a few examples of Corinthia College strips last June on the topic of racist sports team names.) This particular one is in the format of a Sunday color comic, even though it came out on Thursday in black and white.