Politico - Warren, Healey Push for Federal Student-Loan Cancelation

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Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined forces to push the US Department of Education to cancel student loans issued by a now-defunct for-profit college in Brighton.

"It does start here in Massachusetts," Healey told reporters. "We hope what's happening here today sends a signal to the U.S. Department of Education and gets them to do what they need to do and what they can do, more importantly, right now, to make this a more fair situation for students not just here in Massachusetts but across this country."

Warren offered praise for the first-term attorney general, who is widely viewed as a rising Democratic star in the Bay State.

"This is watching what it means to fight back and that's what our attorney general does," she told reporters at the event.

Healey, in turn, praised the senior senator: "You know we have no greater champion fighting for the people than Senator Warren."

Dozens of students from the shuttered Everest Institute in Brighton turned out to a free loan assistance session at Boston University on Tuesday evening. Healey's office "alleges that the school misrepresented its medical programs and job placement rates and falsely promised students high-paying jobs that resulted in substantial debt, and, at times, loan defaults," according to a statement from the attorney general's office.

"This is not about charity or trying to help people and pass out favors," Warren said. "This is truly about saying that these people do not owe these loans. They were cheated. They were tricked."

In an indication of the Obama administration's receptiveness to the message from Healey and Warren, senior officials from the U.S. Department of Education, including special master Joseph Smith, were on hand on Tuesday night. Smith reviews the debts of students who have attended predatory programs such as Everest Institute and establishes state law discharge procedures.

At the event, students created sworn affidavits that will then be delivered to the Department of Education as the basis for group relief to students seeking discharge of federal loans.

"The federal government should be using its leverage in this area to keep the costs of college down," Warren said.

Kelly Semedo, a 22-year-old former student who attended the event, said she always dreamed of becoming a doctor or a nurse and signed up to attend Everest Institute's medical assistant program in 2011, taking out a loan to cover tuition.

"Boom, I saw the commercial and there I was registered for classes. Looking back, it was way too easy," Samedo said on Tuesday evening.

Like so many of her fellow classmates, Samedo was jobless when graduating from the one-year program in 2012, only to discover that a second loan had been taken out in her name. Since then, Samedo says that the loans have kept her in debt while she tries to make ends meet with a job at RadioShack.

The event connected affected students with assistance in enrolling in affordable repayment plans and applying for cancelation of their federal student loans.

"We have a problem in the area of for-profit student loans and we have a problem in overall student lending," Warren said. "The federal government should not be making a profit off the backs of any of our students and we have a problem with the rising cost of higher education."

Asked by reporters later in the event about the possibility of endorsing in the presidential race, Warren said she wasn't ready yet, and was waiting to see how the field would finally shape up. She also deflected a question about whether she would consider running for vice president.

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