The U.S. Department of Education announced on Wednesday that it will forgive $415 million in student loans to nearly 16,000 former students after their schools may have misled them into loans.
"The Department remains committed to giving borrowers discharges when the evidence shows their college violated the law and standards," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, said in a statement Wednesday.
The Department of Education determined after reviewing "voluminous amounts of evidence" that DeVry University misled prospective students by saying that 90% of graduates got a job in their field of study within six months of graduation. However, that number was realistically closer to 58%, according to the department.
Close to 1,800 former DeVry University students will be forgiven of $71.7 million in student loans, according to CBS News.
The Department of Education added that it expects the number of approvals from former DeVry students to increase.
"Nonetheless, we do believe that the Department of Education mischaracterizes DeVry’s calculation and disclosure of graduate outcomes in certain advertising, and we do not agree with the conclusions they have reached," Donna Shaults, a spokesperson for DeVry University, said.
A total of about $2 billion for more than 107,000 borrowers has now been forgiven by the department.
"Students count on their colleges to be truthful," Cardona said. "Unfortunately, today’s findings show too many instances in which students were misled into loans at institutions or programs that could not deliver what they’d promised."
DeVry wasn't the only college accused of misleading its students, as Westwood College, ITT Technical Institute, Minnesota School of Business and/or Globe University, Corinthian Colleges and Marinello Schools of Beauty all were found guilty by the Department of Education.
About 1,600 borrowers from Westwood College in Denver will be forgiven of $53.1 million in loans after the department determined it misled students. The school said graduates between 2002 and 2015 had job placement rates of more than 80% "and that graduates would make salaries of $50,000 or more," according to the Department of Education. They also promised to help former students pay their bills if they didn't get a job within six months of graduation.
"The Department has no evidence Westwood made good on its pledge," the Department of Education said. "In fact, its job placement rates were grossly inflated, and its salary promises were based upon national federal data while actual Westwood graduates often made half or as little as one-fourth of those amounts."
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