First ITT, and Now Westwood College $1.5 Billion Student Loans Were Cancelled

The good news for the student loans (SL) borrowers continues this week. It first started with ITT SL cancellations. On August 30, 2022 AAEA learned that the DOE announced the 79K Westwood College’s SL borrowers have been cancelled. For many years, AAEA has done analyses based on historical data, and arrived in the conclusions that, some, if not all for-profit colleges or not-for profit higher educational institutions have tainted business model. Could, however, these defunct colleges solely to be blamed? Of course, there so many factors plays important roles in creating the unfortunate situation. One of them is lack-of-government control., i.e., audit on many aspects of higher ed. There are 2 main factors contributed to the problem. They are: (1). Academic related, and (2). Money related issues. The academic related issues are hoped to be managed through accreditation agencies. But, it proved to yield mediocre results. On the money side, one cannot see real efforts from the government to control the college operating cost.