Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education for records of the Obama administration's reported "coding error" which caused inflated College Scorecard repayment rates.
"The Obama administration's Obamacare legislation also included provisions that resulted in the federal takeover of the student loan industry, which radically increased taxpayer subsidies of higher education loans," Judicial Watch said in a statement.
"The Education Department acknowledged in early January that the coding error resulted in wildly inaccurate College Scorecard repayment rates."
Judicial Watch cited a The Wall Street Journal report the Obama-era Education Department announced a "coding error" which "led to the undercounting of some borrowers who had not reduced their loan balances by at least one dollar."
"The government-run student loan racket is a disaster for taxpayers and has been abused to target for-profit competitors of liberal-controlled 'public' universities," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in the group's statement. "The Trump administration should quickly respond to our FOIA lawsuit about this scandal. The Trump administration has an opportunity to drain the swamp in higher education by exposing the truth about their expensive taxpayer subsidies."
The Consumer Federation of America put out a study last Tuesday reporting the number of people severely behind on their student loan repayments is 14 percent higher than last year, according to The Washington Post.