Former students of the for-profit Art Institutes are approved for $6 billion in loan cancellation

By COLLIN BINKLEY
AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration says it’ll cancel $6 billion in student loans for people who attended the Art Institutes, a system of for-profit colleges that closed the last of its campuses in 2023 amid accusations of fraud. The Education Department says the Art Institutes chain lured students with lies. The department said Wednesday it’ll automatically erase loans for 317,000 people who attended any Art Institute campus between Jan. 1, 2004, and Oct. 16, 2017. The Education Department says it’s taking action after reviewing evidence from the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Iowa and Pennsylvania. The Democratic administration says in total it has approved the cancellation of almost $160 billion in student loans through a variety of existing programs.