Multiple colleges have complained that the Biden administration's move to forgive student loans at about 150 schools caused their reputations to suffer, the Washington Examiner reports.
Arthur Keiser, the chancellor and CEO of Keiser University in Florida, told the Examiner in an interview that the school's reputation fell after it was listed among the colleges in the settlement.
"We've had prospective students who've not enrolled because of this [settlement]," he said. "We're concerned, we don't understand it, and we have never seen a single complaint that the department has talked about."
A U.S. District Court judge recently rejected a motion made by Everglades College Inc. and two other schools to block the settlement agreement from being implemented, and wrote in his decision that the schools' “assertions of reputational harm remain markedly speculative, [and] 'grounded in platitudes rather than evidence.'”
A spokesperson for the Department of Education told the Examiner in a statement that it is "pleased that the court's decision has allowed implementation of the settlement to move forward for the vast majority of covered borrowers.”
They added, "The Department has started the process of implementing the settlement, which will provide billions of dollars in long-awaited relief to more than 200,000 borrowers and will resolve plaintiffs' claims in a fair and equitable manner.”
However, Nicholas Kent, the head policy officer at Career Education Colleges and Universities, a trade organization that represents for-profit colleges, told the Examiner that he expects that ruling to be overturned on appeal.
"We feel that the 9th Circuit [Court of Appeals] will also strike down the settlement at the circuit level. The court's argument is, in part, Well, you already got the money, and the department is saying that they can't go after you because of the settlement.
"But there's huge reputational harm that has been done as a result of being labeled a wrongdoer on that list. The school didn't get any due process to raise their hand and say, Listen, this isn't true."