College Rankings Fraud and Loan Forgiveness: What to Know

With the recent reports about colleges providing false information for rankings, could college ranking fraud or misleading financial aid award letters qualify you for student loan forgiveness?

Borrower Defense to Repayment can discharge a borrower’s federal student loans when they were defrauded by their college. But what does the Department of Education define as "defrauded"?

With the recent reports of colleges (especially some 'prestigious' ones) providing false information to boost their scores in rankings like US News, and other reports of colleges sending misleading financial aid award letters to make their schools appear less expensive to attend - the question of what is considered fraud extends well beyond the issues that we've seen with for-profit colleges.

Can you qualify for loan forgiveness if your college provided false and misleading information to the college rankings? Can you qualify for student loan forgiveness if your college provided a misleading financial aid award letter? 

The answer is, as is often the case in matters relating to financial aid for college, “it depends.”