The hits against Corinthian Colleges continue to come. Corinthian Colleges Incorporated received a judgement against it in the amount of $1.17 billion to be paid to the State of California for illegal practices.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris filed a lawsuit against the company that operates the now defunct for-profit Corinthian Colleges arguing that the organization left its students out to dry by saddling them with massive amounts of debt that many could not afford to pay back.
The school would reward students with worthless degrees that many companies refused to recognize, leaving students without the ability to repay their student loans.
So a California judge ruled in favor of the state of California and ordered Corinthian Colleges Inc. to pay over $800 million in restitution to former students with the remaining amount going towards penalties.
This seems to be great news for students as they’ll have the ability to potentially receive some type of financial relief from student loans received while attending a Corinthian College.
But there may be a problem as Corinthian filed for bankruptcy last year, and by way of information from the company’s former attorney, Corinthian may not have to pay since it is no longer in operation.
No matter for the state and Harris, though, as her office has set-up a website for students to visit to receive help and to gain information about the judgement.
Schools run by Corinthian Colleges Inc. operated under the umbrella of career colleges where students who wanted a college degree, but didn’t have the time to absorb a traditional college schedule, could attend and receive a degree to help them receive better employment opportunities.
The company went after people of poor financial means and profited off of those individuals’ ability to receive student loans from the government and private lenders.
Corinthian likely received up to 90 percent of its funding from federal loan programs, so many of the schools were being fueled economically by the government and poor students.
Hopefully students in California will be able to collect what was lost.
