Plans to roll out a new website geared toward helping college students who were defrauded apply for loan forgiveness were scrapped because a top education official said the site made the process too easy, according to a whistleblower complaint.
U.S. News and World Report reports the Federal Student Aid (FSA) office was charged with creating a new website for students applying for loan forgiveness under a borrower defense. That means students, who felt their colleges mislead them about things like job placement rates, average earnings post-graduation and the transferability of credits, can apply to have some or all of the debt they incurred forgiven.
The borrower defense rule was recently overhauled by the Trump administration and the new website was supposed to reflect the changes and create an easier process.
The site was scheduled to go live on July 1, which is when the new borrower defense rule goes into effect, U.S. News reports.
But issues with the new site started in late February, according to a whistleblower, who is a career staffer involved in the website project.
The whistleblower claims Diane Auer Jones, principal deputy undersecretary at the Education Department, complained some parts of the site were too user-friendly and provided students with too much information.
Two weeks ago, Jones told the FSA team that it could not launch the website, according to the whistleblower, who then file another complaint with the Office of Inspector General.
COO of FSA, Mark Brown, said he expects the new site to launch in the fall, but the whistleblower says that timeline is unrealistic.
"Diane doesn't want more people applying for it," the whistleblower told U.S. News.
A spokeswoman for the Education Department pushed back on claims someone is trying to kill the site.
"Anyone who says that there has been any effort by anyone at the Department to delay or obstruct the development of a new borrower defense form or website is lying," Angela Morabito, a spokeswoman for the department, told U.S. News. "It's as simple as that."
The new site is supposed to make the loan forgiveness application process easier.
"The website was built in order to filter out people who don't qualify and ensure that borrowers who do qualify have the correct information to apply," the whistleblower said. "The people who are putting these things together are some of the best people at FSA. They are really tuned into the challenges borrowers are experiencing with the website.”
One of the biggest reasons borrower's claims are rejected is because the application is incorrectly filled out, which the new site tried to fix, the whistleblower said.
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