ITT Technical announced in September 5, 2016 they were closing their doors. “It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service,” they said.
So where does this leave ITT Tech students?
The good news is that ITT Tech student that were using federal student loans can have their student loans forgiven, wiped away, eliminated. Well, some of them at least.
This gift will only apply to students who are currently enrolled or withdrew after May 8, 2016.
To obtain student loan forgiveness under the Closed School Discharge you should contact your loan servicer about the application process for getting your loan discharged.
- Be sure to continue to make payments on your loan while your discharge application is being processed.
- Find out what happens if your loan discharge is approved.
- Find out what happens if your loan discharge is denied.
If your forgiveness application is approved, not only will you not have to make any further payments but you will receive a refund of payments made voluntarily or through forced collection.
There are some big gotchas to avoid or you will lose the benefit of the student loan forgiveness if you are eligible.
If you do any of the following you may lose your eligibility:
- Transfer credits to a different school.
- Graduated and received degree.
- You accept a “teach-out” plan by ITT to allow you to finish your degree at another school.
Does any of this apply to private student loans? Nope, and again this is another great example of why private student loans really, really suck.
And for those that previously graduated, you are out of luck. You got the degree and the debt.
The next option for federal student loan students to have all their loans forgiven will be through the Borrower Defense to Repayment program. Under this program if it can be documented that ITT Tech broke the law and defrauded you then you may be eligible to have all of your federal student loans completely eliminated.
But before you get too excited or think this is going to be an easy process, you should read The Borrower Defense Pothole That Will Swallow Many Trying to Forgive Student Loans.
The Borrower Defense approach is still a developing solution and the Department of Education is still working out a definitive process on this. I would suggest you subscribe to my email newsletter to keep posted on new developments.
And for private student loan holders, you’re still screwed, this forgiveness program still does not apply to you.
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