Around 200,000 holders of federal student loans who attended schools that they say defrauded or misled them filed a lawsuit known as Sweet v. Cardona in 2019. After the court ruled in their favor in 2022, these borrowers began receiving debt relief from the Department of Education (DOE) as part of a $6 billion settlement, including refunds of the payments they’d already made on their federal loans.
If your school was one of more than 150 institutions included in the Sweet v. Cardona debt settlement, but you didn’t apply to be included in the settlement before 2022, you are probably not going to be able to receive this form of debt relief.
However, help is still available. If you feel your school has misled you, violated state laws, or engaged in other misconduct that affected your decision to borrow federal student loans, you can apply for debt relief through a process called borrower defense. Read on to learn about Sweet v. Cardona and what it might mean for you.
Key Points
• The Sweet v. Cardona lawsuit involved over 200,000 federal student loan borrowers who said the educational institutions they attended misled or defrauded them.
• Plaintiffs in the lawsuit maintained that their applications for loan cancellations had been ignored.
• A $6 billion Sweet v. Cardona settlement was agreed to provide federal student loan relief.
• Eligibility for relief is granted to borrowers who applied by June 2022 and attended one of the more than 150 institutions in the settlement. Relief efforts will continue through 2025.
• The lawsuit highlighted flaws in the borrower defense process, prompting enhancements to streamline it.
Background of the Case
In Sweet v. Cardona, individuals were saddled with heavy student loan debt from certain educational institutions, many of them for-profit, that the loan holders say delivered a subpar education.
“For decades, the predatory for-profit college industry has exploited the promise of higher education,” says the Project on Predatory Student Lending, the legal advocate for defendants in Sweet v. Cardona. “Instead of providing the quality programs promised, these companies invest almost no money into meaningful career training, leaving thousands of students behind.”
The concept of “borrower defense” was created in 1994. It’s a federal process that allows students who say they have been defrauded by their college, university, or career school to seek student loan forgiveness for their federal loans.
The borrower defense process does not apply to those with private student loans.
Borrower defense was an obscure program until 2015, when the for-profit Corinthian Colleges, Inc. shut down and hundreds of thousands of its students were left with degrees of questionable value. This thrust the issue of exploitative education into the headlines. (After years of hearings and litigation, the DOE in 2023 announced it would discharge all remaining federal student loans borrowed to attend any campus owned or operated by Corinthian from 1995 to 2015. This resulted in 560,000 borrowers receiving $5.8 billion in full student loan discharge.)
The question of subpar education soon extended far beyond Corinthian. In a later court ruling, the DOE said that “there was an unprecedented surge in borrower defense applications.” Some of these applicants say that the DOE was making it difficult to get out of student loan debt and receive debt relief.
On June 25, 2019, the original seven plaintiffs in the Sweet v. Cardona case (originally called Sweet v. DeVos) filed their lawsuit in California federal district court, saying their claims for loan cancellation had been ignored by the DOE.
The case was certified as a class action in October 2019, and it grew to include thousands of borrowers who argued they’d been defrauded by more than 150 colleges, mostly for-profit. To find out If your school was one of the institutions included in the Sweet v. Cardona settlement, see this list.
Key Issues in Sweet v. Cardona
The Sweet v Cardona lawsuit was filed because of the difficulty borrowers had in obtaining debt relief even after establishing that the school defrauded students. The Project on Predatory Student Lending said that “students who experienced fraud should not be required to pay back federal loans. Since the Department of Education repeatedly ignored these students’ legal rights, the only way they could have their voices heard was through the courts.”
Borrower Defense to Repayment Claims
The Sweet vs. Cardona plaintiffs applied to discharge their student loans “under a statute authorizing discharges based on misrepresentations or other misconduct by the borrowers’ schools,” said the court.
After years of hearings and disputes over the plaintiffs’ claims, the court granted approval of a final settlement in the Sweet v. Cardona case on November 16, 2022.
Department of Education’s Handling of Claims
The DOE announced it would comply with the court’s settlement.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in December 2022, “We are pleased with the borrower defense court decision approving the settlement, which will provide billions of dollars of relief to over 200,000 borrowers. It will also resolve plaintiffs’ claims in a fair and equitable manner.”
The settlement could result in discharge of a plaintiff’s outstanding loans and in refunds of any amount previously paid to the federal government toward those loans.
Plaintiffs who opted to refinance student loans with a private lender — specifically federal Direct loans and government-held FFEL loans — after they applied for borrower defense, are due to get a refund of the amount paid to the government by the private lender when they refinanced. They will owe the lender any remaining balance.
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Timeline of Major Events
There have been some delays in the massive Sweet v Cardona settlement.
January 28, 2023: The Sweet v. Cardona settlement became effective and the Department of Education started to implement debt relief.
February 15, 2023: The court held a hearing on a motion by three schools to stay the settlement. On February 24, the district court granted a temporary stay of discharges and discharge requests related to the three schools that filed the motion: Lincoln Technical Institute; American National University; and Everglades College, Inc.
March 29, 2023: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the intervenor schools’ motion to stay the settlement pending their appeals. This meant that settlement relief proceeded for class members from those three schools, and should continue on course for everyone else. The DOE was to complete implementation of the terms by the end of January 2024.
March 18, 2024: The Project on Predatory Student Lending said the DOE had not met the court-ordered deadline of providing debt relief to tens of thousands of people covered by Sweet v. Cardona.
“Many of these borrowers filed their borrower defense applications as early as 2015 and have been waiting nearly ten years for the relief they are owed,” said the Project on Predatory Student Lending.
April 26, 2024: A U.S. District judge granted the DOE extra time to deliver Sweet v. Cardona relief. Borrowers expected to learn about the schedule for their federal student loan relief by August 31, 2024.
September 26, 2024: The DOE reported that it is now in “substantial compliance” with the settlement provisions.
Implications for Student Loan Borrowers
The latest Sweet v. Cardona update is that the settlement amount should have reached the plaintiff’s bank account by now or it is being processed. The DOE is working its way toward providing relief settlements for all those who submitted a borrower defense application on or before June 22, 2022, and were approved.
The DOE said on its website: “Sweet class members who have pending borrower defense applications or have applications that have been approved but have loans that have not been fully discharged are not obligated to repay their loans. If you have been notified by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that you are a member of the Sweet class and you receive a payment notice from your servicer, you are not obligated to make payments while your application or loan discharge is pending.”
Potential Debt Relief
The Sweet settlement impacts only individuals who attended one of the schools on the court-approved list and applied to be included on or before June 15, 2022. If you didn’t apply by that date, you are ineligible for Cardona v. Sweet but you can still learn more about borrower defense and whether to apply.
Changes to Borrower Defense Processes
The Sweet v. Cardona lawsuit was filed because people who successfully completed borrower defense to repayment applications said it was taking too long to get debt relief. The DOE says it has since improved and streamlined the borrower defense review process for these applications.
Current Status and Developments
The Sweet v. Cardona payments have been processed or are underway for plaintiffs with borrower defense applications filed on or before June 22, 2022, according to the DOE. The DOE will continue to process student loan relief provided by this legal settlement through 2025.
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Scammers Pursue Sweet v. Cardona Plaintiffs
Sweet v. Cardona plaintiffs should be aware of student loan scams. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that scammers are attempting to take advantage of plaintiffs in the settlement by trying to extract money to supposedly expedite the claims.
The FTC website says, “Don’t pay anybody for anything related to your borrower defense claim. Nobody can move you up in line, give you special access, or guarantee a successful application. Not for free, and certainly not for money. And only scammers will ask. And if you spot a scam, tell the FTC: ReportFraud.ftc.gov.”
The Takeaway
The historic settlement of Sweet v. Cardona has underscored the importance of pursuing an education at a school that provides integrity and value and doesn’t over promise what they can deliver.
Individuals who borrowed federal student loans for a degree that ended up being subpar, or if their school defrauded or misled them, can apply for borrower defense from the Department of Education for relief from their loans. If they prove their case and their application is approved, they can receive debt relief.
Looking to lower your monthly student loan payment? Refinancing may be one way to do it — by extending your loan term, getting a lower interest rate than what you currently have, or both. (Please note that refinancing federal loans makes them ineligible for federal forgiveness and protections. Also, lengthening your loan term may mean paying more in interest over the life of the loan.) SoFi student loan refinancing offers flexible terms that fit your budget.
FAQ
What is Sweet v. Cardona about?
Sweet v. Cardona is a settlement of a class action lawsuit filed by over 200,000 people who attended schools that they successfully argued defrauded them of an education. The landmark case grants $6 billion in relief from federal student loans.
Who qualifies for relief under the Sweet v. Cardona settlement?
People who attended one of the more than 150 schools included in the Sweet v. Cardona settlement, and who filled out an application by June 2022 that was approved, qualify for relief under the settlement. It is too late to join the class action suit now.
How does this case affect the borrower defense to repayment program?
The Sweet v. Cardona lawsuit was filed because individuals who successfully completed and submitted borrower defense to repayment applications said it was taking too long to get debt relief. The Department of Education says it has since made improvements to borrower defense and streamlined the process.
photocredit: iStock/gorodenkoff
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