the student loan

thousands of students inthe u.s. are applying for debtforgiveness involving their student loan debt after theysay their schools have defrauded them. a lot of students don't knowthis, back in 1994 the government passed a lawindicating that if you were defrauded in some way whengetting your education, you could qualify for debtforgiveness. student loan debt is the onlytype of debt that you

cannot get rid of even if youfile for bankruptcy. however this law that was passedin 1994, does allow you to at least apply and see if youcan get debt forgiveness. i love this story because itis something that was not publicized before. i also love it because it pointsa finger to something i have been ranting about for a verylong time, for-profit colleges. almost every single student whoapplied to this program went to a for-profit college.

those colleges rely veryheavily, about 90 to 95 percent, from federalstudent loans. so, then they take out thesefederal loans, tens of thousands of dollarsin some cases. they get a subpar education,then are told through these recruiters that their graduatesmake a ton of money. they lie about that, but theyalso lie about job placement. let's say you go to theschools for a chef program. when you delve into the numbersyou find out that they get

employed at mcdonald's. the school considers thatgainful employment. that is not a chef, that issomeone working at mcdonald's. you don't need a degree towork there. american citizens were watchingthis, that is your money. that is your money that went totaxes, then these students use that money for thiseducation. that money just went to theseso-called colleges to make them rich.

if they expunge these loans, inthe end the only person who gets screwed are americantaxpayers. it makes me so angry becausethis is another example of what deregulation doesto this country. you deregulate these privatecompanies that offer education, and they are ableto do whatever they want. >> it goes far beyond thepractice of doing these student loan type deals. it goesdown to educational providers. in my opinion, placing such ahigh value socially on

these degrees that are aren'tworth very much to begin with. there is no guaranteeof getting a job. i think this is one of thebiggest issues facing ã± politically, socially,facing all of us. i find myself in student loandebt. i am angry about it. i would love to sue. i think the federal governmentis definitely complacent. it's a mess. >> i know it's a must.

this didn't get much mediaattention until john oliver did a piece on it. these for-profit colleges arereally bad. if anyone is wondering what thedifferences between these colleges in traditionalinstitutions, there are state schools which areconsidered public schools. there are privateuniversities, like usc. any type of profit that thoseschools make goes back into the school. with for-profitcolleges is very different.

they have a board of investors. the whole point of theinstitution is to turn a profit to make the investorsand the owners wealthy. it's not about education,it's about profit. once you create that type ofprofit motive, education is not the end game, it's all aboutmoney. the students were lied to, exploited, convinced to takeout these loans. in the end, they have very little to showfor it. >>what is the answer to this?

>>the answer is robust regulation. i know conservative headsexplode, but that's what you need to do. when you are toying withtaxpayer money and are convinced that you are a fiscalconservative, then practice what you preach. you have to have a governmentthat protects the people. right now we have a governmentthat protects private industry, that is the issue.

barack obama wanted to pass lawspertaining to for-profit colleges, known as gainfulemployment laws. he first came at them withaggressive laws to prove the facts, real numbers. after he met with some of thelobbyists involved in these for-profit colleges, hescaled back a bit. now we're dealing with thisissue where students have tens of thousands, hundreds ofthousands of student loan debt for a school thatdoesn't even exist anymore.