FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 2019
Attorney General James Announces More Than $2.5 Million in Debt Relief for New York ITT Tech Students.
Multistate settlement delivers justice for students in 43 states and DC.
Credit Reports for all students affected will be repaired.
NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced that her office obtained an agreement to provide $2.58 million in debt relief to 288 former ITT Tech (“ITT”) students in New York as part of a settlement with 44 State Attorneys General. The agreement was made with Student CU Connect CUSO, LLC (“CUSO”), which was created for the sole purpose of providing private student loans to students at ITT — the now defunct for-profit college.
“Instead of helping students further their education, CUSO and ITT targeted, exploited, and bullied young people into taking predatory loans that would have lasting impacts on their lives,” said Attorney General Letitia James. “This settlement will ensure these students are not saddled with a lifetime of debt and bad credit, providing relief to hundreds of low-income New Yorkers.”
The investigation revealed that ITT — with CUSO’s knowledge — targeted low-income students and specifically offered them a “temporary credit” upon enrollment to cover the gap between the maximum amount of federal student aid available and the full cost of attending ITT. However, unlike typical financial aid or student loans offered by most colleges and universities, this “temporary credit” was due to be repaid before the student’s next academic year. Both ITT and CUSO knew or could easily deduce that most students would not be able to repay these “temporary credits” when due, and, instead of giving students time to pay off the credits, ITT pressured students into accepting loans from CUSO. Some of the high-pressure tactics ITT used included pulling students out of class and threatening to expel them if they did not accept the CUSO loans. Many students were forced to choose between taking unwanted loans from CUSO and dropping out of school.
CUSO then specifically preyed upon these students, many of whom could not pay off their loans and who would likely default on them. More than 90-percent of students defaulted on their loans, and those defaults — which have generally not been dischargeable in bankruptcy — continue to affect students’ credit ratings today.
Under the settlement, CUSO has agreed to forego collection of the students’ outstanding loans and will cease to do business. CUSO’s loan servicer will send notices to borrowers about the cancelled debt within 30 days and will ensure that automatic payments are cancelled. The settlement also requires CUSO to provide updated information to Credit Reporting Agencies for affected borrowers — effectively deleting the loans from the students’ credit reports — so that any students’ credit affected by defaulted loans to CUSO are repaired and restored to their previous states.
The investigation was conducted in conjunction with 44 State Attorneys General across the nation, and its subsequent settlement will result in debt relief of more than $168 million for over 18,000 former ITT students, who took out loans between March 2009 and December 2011. The agreement is contingent upon federal court approval of a related settlement between CUSO and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Students with questions about the settlement can contact the New York State Attorney General’s Office at 1-800-771-7755.
ITT filed for bankruptcy in 2016, and had 149 campuses across the country. The three ITT campuses in New York were in Albany, Liverpool, and Getzville.
This case was handled by Special Counsel Carolyn Fast, under the supervision of Laura J. Levine, Deputy Bureau Chief of the Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau, Bureau Chief Jane M. Azia, and Chief Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice Christopher D’Angelo.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 2019
Attorney General James Seeks Preliminary Injunction Against the Trump Administration to Stop Health Care Discrimination.
HHS Final Rule Would Expand Ability of Businesses and Individuals to Refuse to Provide Necessary Health Care on the Basis of Their Own Beliefs.
Motion is Supported by Dozens of Public Health Experts from Across the U.S.
NEW YORK – Attorney General Letitia James, leading a coalition of 23 states, cities, and municipalities, today filed a motion to seek a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from adopting a Final Rule that would expand the ability of businesses and individuals to refuse to provide necessary health care on the basis of businesses' or employees’ “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” The motion is supported by declarations from 48 leading public health professionals from states across the country. Attorney General James, leading a coalition of 23 cities and states, filed a lawsuit against HHS in May 2019 to challenge this discriminatory rule.
“We will not allow this administration to put politics over the health and safety of people,” said Attorney General Letitia James. “We trust doctors and medical professionals to provide us with necessary care and this rule would give them the greenlight to put their personal beliefs over their professional obligations. This rule is blatantly discriminatory and illegal, and we will not let the federal government put countless Americans in harm’s way.”
The preliminary injunction seeks to stop the Final Rule from taking effect in July 2019, arguing that it would undermine the delivery of health care by giving a wide range of health care institutions and individuals a right to refuse care, based on the health provider’s own personal views. The Rule drastically expands the types of providers eligible to make such refusals, ranging from ambulance drivers to emergency room doctors to receptionists to customer service representatives at insurance companies. The Rule makes this right absolute and categorical, and no matter what reasonable steps a health provider or employer makes to accommodate the views of an objecting individual, if that individual rejects a proposed accommodation, a provider or employer is left with no recourse.
Under the Final Rule, a hospital could not inquire, prior to hiring a nurse, if (s)he objected to administering a measles vaccination—even if this was a core duty of the job in the middle of an outbreak of the disease. Or an emergency room doctor could refuse to assist a woman who arrived with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, even if the woman’s life was in jeopardy.
The lawsuit filed by the coalition further alleges that the risk of noncompliance is the termination of billions of dollars in federal health care funding. If HHS determines, in its sole discretion, that states or localities have failed to comply with the Final Rule – through their own actions or the actions of thousands of sub-contractors relied upon to deliver health services – the federal government could terminate funding to those states and localities, to the price tag of hundreds of billions of dollars. States and localities rely upon those funds for countless programs to promote the public health of their residents, including Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, HIV/AIDS and STD prevention and education, and substance abuse and mental health treatment.
The lawsuit argues that this drastic expansion of refusal rights, and the draconian threat of termination of federal funds, violates the federal Administrative Procedures Act and the Spending Clause and separation of powers principles in the U.S. Constitution.
In addition to New York, the preliminary injunction was filed by the City of New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, the City of Chicago, and Cook County, Illinois.
New York’s action has been led by Matthew Colangelo, Chief Counsel for Federal Initiatives, Assistant Attorneys General Lilia Toson, Brooke Tucker, Amanda Meyer, and Justin Deabler in the Civil Rights and Health Care Bureaus, and Lisa Landau, Health Care Bureau Chief. The Health Care and Civil Rights Bureaus are part of the New York Attorney General’s Social Justice Division, led by Chief Deputy Attorney General Meghan Faux.
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