What is borrower defense to repayment?

Borrower defense to repayment is a federal program that lets you apply to have your federal student loans discharged — meaning cancelled by the government — if your school misled you, engaged in fraudulent conduct, or violated certain laws in connection with the education you received. The legal basis is in the Higher Education Act. It is not a new stimulus measure or special relief package; it is a long-standing federal consumer protection for defrauded students. You apply directly and at no cost through the US Department of Education at studentaid.gov/borrower-defense.

How do I apply for borrower defense to repayment?

Go to studentaid.gov/borrower-defense, log in with your FSA ID, and complete the online application. You will describe how your school misled you, identify the loans you want discharged, and submit supporting documentation if you have it. There is no filing fee and no deadline for most applicants. Never pay a third-party company to file this application on your behalf — the process is free and you do not need assistance.

How do I check my borrower defense application status?

Log in to your account at studentaid.gov and look under 'My Aid.' You can also contact the borrower defense hotline at 1-855-279-6207 or reach your federal loan servicer. Processing times have historically varied from months to years depending on the volume of claims and any policy or legal developments, so it is worth checking periodically rather than assuming a lack of response means denial.

Will borrower defense hurt my credit score?

A borrower defense discharge should not damage your credit. If loans are placed in administrative forbearance while your application is pending, payments are paused and collection is stopped — forbearance itself does not typically lower your score. Once a discharge is approved, the discharged debt should be removed from your record. However, any prior delinquency or default on those same loans may already appear on your credit report; the discharge does not erase that history. Review your credit report after discharge to confirm that the loans are updated correctly.

Can I get my loans discharged if my for-profit college closed?

It depends on how your loans are classified. If your school closed while you were enrolled or shortly after you withdrew, you may qualify for a separate closed-school discharge rather than borrower defense — these are different programs with different rules. Borrower defense applies specifically when the school engaged in misconduct or fraud, not merely because it closed. Some former students of schools like ITT Tech and Corinthian qualify under both, but you should review which path fits your situation at studentaid.gov.

Does ITT Tech qualify for student loan discharge?

Many former ITT Tech students have qualified for borrower defense discharges. The Department of Education has issued group-discharge decisions covering certain ITT Tech attendees, which means some former students automatically received discharge without filing individually. If you attended ITT Tech and have not yet checked whether you are included in a group discharge or need to file individually, review the official guidance at studentaid.gov/borrower-defense.

Can Corinthian Colleges students get their loans discharged?

Yes. Former Corinthian Colleges students (Everest, Heald, WyoTech) have been among the most prominently approved groups under borrower defense. The Department of Education issued broad group discharge decisions for Corinthian attendees. If you attended a Corinthian school and still have federal loans, check your loan servicer account and studentaid.gov to see whether your discharge was automatically applied or whether you need to submit a claim.

Is my degree still valid if my school shut down?

Whether a degree from a closed school remains valid depends on the field, the employer, and any licensing board requirements — not on the discharge itself. Receiving a borrower defense discharge does not invalidate your credits or credential, but a degree from a closed or discredited institution may already face skepticism from some employers or licensing bodies regardless. Some states have credit-transfer protections for students of closed schools. If your credentials are at issue in a specific professional or licensing context, consult the relevant licensing body directly; this is a separate question from loan discharge eligibility.

Borrower defense to repayment: how to get your federal student loans discharged if your school defrauded you

If you attended a for-profit school — Corinthian Colleges, ITT Tech, Argosy, the Art Institutes, or another school that closed or misled students — you may be able to apply for a federal borrower defense discharge to cancel your remaining federal student loans. This guide explains what the program is, exactly how to apply for free, what happens while the government reviews your case, and the hard limits you need to understand before you rely on it.

What borrower defense to repayment actually is

Borrower defense to repayment is a legal right embedded in the Higher Education Act. It lets a borrower ask the US Department of Education to discharge — cancel — their federal student loans on the grounds that the school they attended committed fraud, made material misrepresentations, or broke state consumer-protection law in a way directly related to the education they received or borrowed money to pay for.

In plain terms: if a for-profit college lied to you about job placement rates, the accreditation of your program, transfer credits, or the quality of instruction you would receive, you may have grounds to apply for a borrower defense discharge. This is not a relief measure unique to any one administration — it is a standing federal mechanism that has been used, with varying eligibility standards, since the mid-1990s.

It is worth being precise about scope. Borrower defense is about school misconduct, not about financial hardship, income, or the size of your balance. If you simply cannot afford to repay, that is a real problem but it points you toward income-driven repayment or other programs (see our student loan debt relief guide). Borrower defense is for students who were deceived.

Who qualifies — school types and eligible loans

To have your application considered, two things generally need to be true:

You have federal Direct Loans (or other eligible federal loans) tied to the attendance in question. FFEL loans may qualify in some circumstances; Perkins loans have their own discharge track. Private student loans — from a bank, credit union, or any non-government lender — are never covered, regardless of which school you attended.
Your school engaged in misconduct covered by the applicable standard. The exact legal standard has shifted across regulatory periods, but it broadly includes false statements about your program's accreditation, job placement outcomes, or transfer-credit acceptance — the kinds of claims that drove large enrollment fraud lawsuits against Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institute, Argosy University, and the Art Institutes.

For borrowers who attended these schools specifically, the Department of Education has issued group discharge decisions, meaning the government determined that the misconduct was institution-wide rather than requiring each student to prove individual harm. If you were enrolled during the relevant periods, you may have received — or be entitled to receive — discharge without filing a full individual application. Check your servicer account and the official Federal Student Aid pages to see whether a group decision covers you before going through the full individual application process.

If your school is not among those with group decisions, you can still apply individually and document the specific misrepresentation made to you. Log in to studentaid.gov/borrower-defense to review current eligibility standards, which are set by regulation and may be updated over time.

How to apply (free, at studentaid.gov)

The application is submitted entirely online through the Federal Student Aid website. Here is the process:

Log in with your FSA ID at studentaid.gov/borrower-defense. If you do not have an FSA ID, you can create one on the same site. Your FSA ID is your personal federal student aid login — never share it with a third party.
Select the loans you are applying to discharge. You can apply for all your federal loans from the school, or specific ones.
Describe the school's conduct as specifically as you can. What did the school tell you? What was untrue? How did you rely on that information when you enrolled or took out loans? Supporting documentation — enrollment agreements, marketing materials, correspondence with the school, denial letters from employers citing your credentials — strengthens your claim, but you can submit a claim without documentation if you do not have it.
Submit the application. You will receive a confirmation. There is no fee.

There is no formal deadline to file for most borrowers, but you should not delay unnecessarily. Document everything you can remember about what the school told you and when.

STOP: never pay a company to file for you

This is one of the most important things on this page. You should never pay any company, law firm, or service to file a borrower defense application on your behalf. The application is free, open to every eligible borrower, and straightforward enough to complete without a paid intermediary.

A cottage industry of companies market themselves to former for-profit college students using phrases like "student loan forgiveness experts" or claim they can accelerate your application or boost your approval odds for a fee. They cannot. The Department of Education reviews applications on its own standards; a paid intermediary has no special access or influence over the outcome. Paying a company only transfers money from you to them — money you can keep.

The red flags for these scams are consistent: upfront fees or monthly fees, promises of fast or certain approval, requests for your FSA ID password, pressure to act immediately, and official-sounding names designed to mimic government agencies. The FTC and CFPB have warned about these repeatedly. For a broader look at how debt-relief scams operate, see our guide on whether debt settlement companies are legitimate — many of the same warning signs apply to student loan relief scams.

If you want help understanding the application, reach out to a nonprofit student loan counselor or contact the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman Group at no cost.

What happens while your application is under review

Once your application is received and verified, the Department of Education typically places your covered loans in administrative forbearance. This means:

Required monthly payments are paused — you do not need to make payments on the loans in forbearance while the claim is under review.
Active collections (wage garnishment, tax-refund offset) are generally stopped on those loans during review.
Interest: rules have varied by regulatory period. Confirm the current interest treatment with your servicer, because in some periods interest continues to accrue on paused loans even if no payment is required.

If your loans were already in default before you applied, the forbearance should stop collection activity on the specific loans included in your claim. Contact your servicer to confirm the status of any loans not covered by your application.

Processing times have varied significantly — ranging from several months to multiple years — depending on the volume of pending applications, policy changes, and legal proceedings that may affect the program. You are not expected to take any action while your application is pending beyond monitoring your account.

How to check your application status

Log in to your account at studentaid.gov and navigate to "My Aid." Your application status should appear there once it has been processed into the system, which may take a few weeks after submission.

You can also contact the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243 or the dedicated borrower defense hotline at 1-855-279-6207. Have your FSA ID and application confirmation number available when you call.

If your situation changes — for example, if you leave school, change servicers, or receive any written denial — take note of the date and keep copies of all correspondence. If your application is denied, you have the right to request reconsideration and to submit additional documentation.

The hard truths — what borrower defense cannot do

Borrower defense is a meaningful federal protection, but being clear about its limits will help you plan realistically:

Private loans are not covered. If you took out loans from a private lender — a bank, credit union, or online lender — in addition to federal loans to attend the same school, the borrower defense discharge does not apply to those private loans, even if you win your federal claim. You would need to pursue separate remedies (litigation, state consumer-protection claims, or negotiation with the private lender) for private debt.
Approval is not automatic for individual claims. The Department of Education evaluates whether your school's conduct meets the applicable legal standard. Having attended a troubled school is not by itself sufficient; the misconduct must be connected to your enrollment and loans. Group discharges (for Corinthian, ITT Tech, and others) bypass this requirement for covered students, but individual claims require individual review.
Timelines are long and uncertain. The process has moved slowly during high-volume periods. There is no published guarantee of how long your application will take. This is not a quick fix.
Your remaining loan balance matters. A discharge cancels what is owed — it does not automatically refund payments already made, though some relief decisions have included refunds. Check the specific terms of any group discharge decision that may apply to you.
It does not cover all school problems. If your school was accredited, delivered instruction as promised, and simply had poor employment outcomes for graduates, that may not rise to the level of actionable misconduct required for approval. The program is designed for fraud and material misrepresentation, not general dissatisfaction.

If your situation involves private loans or other types of debt on top of federal student debt, see our broader student loan debt relief guide for what other options may apply depending on what you owe and to whom.

Will this affect your credit score?

Administrative forbearance while your application is pending should not itself damage your credit score — a loan in approved forbearance is not reported as delinquent. If you were already delinquent or in default on these loans before you applied, that existing negative history is already on your credit report and borrower defense does not retroactively remove it.

If your discharge is approved, the discharged federal loans should be updated on your credit report to reflect that they are paid or discharged, not outstanding. This is generally neutral to positive for your credit profile going forward. After your discharge is confirmed, pull your credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com and verify that the loans are reported accurately. If they are still showing as outstanding or in collections after discharge, you can dispute that with the credit bureaus.

On the tax side: federal student loan discharges through borrower defense have generally been treated as non-taxable under current law, unlike some private-debt cancellation that can generate a Form 1099-C. This is an area where tax law can change, so if you are approved for a large discharge, confirm the tax treatment with a tax professional in the year it is granted.

Is your degree still valid if the school shut down?

Receiving a borrower defense discharge does not cancel your degree or invalidate your transcripts. The loan discharge is a financial remedy — it addresses what you owe, not what credential you earned. Your academic record from the school, for whatever it is worth, remains yours.

That said, the practical value of a credential from a closed or discredited institution is a separate question. Some employers and professional licensing boards scrutinize degrees from schools that were known for fraud or that lost accreditation. Whether a specific credential creates a problem in your field or state is something to research with the relevant licensing body or a career advisor. Some states have enacted credit-transfer protections or alternative pathways for students of closed institutions; your state's higher-education agency is a starting point for that inquiry.

The discharge is about eliminating what you owe on loans taken out in good faith for an education that did not deliver what was promised. It does not rewrite your academic history — but it may meaningfully improve your financial one.