Debts Canceled for 317,000 Former Students at Art Institutes
Katherine Knott
May 2, 2024
The Education Department will wipe out $6.1 billion in loans for students who attended any Art Institute campus from 2004 to 2017. The relief comes through the borrower defense to repayment program, which allows students who were misled or defrauded by their institution to seek relief.
Department officials said in a news release Wednesday that the shuttered Art Institutes chain and its former parent company, Education Management Corporation, inflated graduate employment rates, exaggerated its relationships with employers, and skewed or falsified the earnings data of graduates.
The department’s news release said that, according to a former employee, “an Art Institute campus included professional tennis player Serena Williams’ annual income to ‘skew the statistics and overinflate potential program salaries.’” (Williams attended the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.)
