Many people who already utilized their limited federal Pell grants to attend ITT or other for-profit college which has been stopped in pursuing their career due to its closing have received a reprieved from the U.S. Department of Education.
Department of Education declared that ITT students can have their Pell eligibility restored for the semester at the now-closed school. Restoring the Pell eligibility is the only department's latest rules which both different side of education-policy debated seems to be on good terms, according to Dispatch.
The target of the overall package is to assist students who were misled or defrauded by colleges. It is done through the process of lessening their federal student loan. The package replaces the various laws on the system of states through a uniform federal process for creating such claims.
Financial instability and suspected misconduct will be deemed by the rules in the institutions requiring them to put some money. This money will be utilized to repay the government for the student loan which must be forgiven. For some critics, additional burden will be on the shoulders of taxpayer with the new debt-forgiveness.
Different parties including the Democrats and the Republicans in the Congress have already welcomed the restoration of the Pell eligibility to those whose schools closed and interrupted people's education. This grant helps those students with lowest-income. In 2008, the Congress limited the grants, emphasizing that one should not use the grant for more than 18 semesters. It was in 2012 that it was lowered to 12 semesters.
According to the Education Department officials, they are still working on ways on how to inform schools and students that the Pell eligibility has been restored as well as to set up process in handling the issue in future closings.
In a statement last November 7, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio praised the Pell relief saying that the students should not pay the price for the deceitful and fraudulent practices done by these educational institutions.
