Immigrant obtains medical degree, can't find MD job. Bankruptcy judge discharges $400,000 in student-loan debt

Seth Koeut was born in Cambodia and came to the United States as a child. Like many immigrants, he applied himself energetically to obtain a better life. He graduated 6th in his high school class and went on to earn two bachelor's degrees from Duke University.

Mr. Koeut then went to medical school and received an MD from Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. Somewhere along the way, he learned to speak English, Cambodian, Spanish, French, and Italian.

Although he passed his Medical Board exams, Koeut could not obtain a residency, which is a prerequisite to obtaining a medical license. After applying for residencies for five years, he gave up hope of becoming a licensed physician in the United States.

Over the years, Koeut held various jobs, including sales clerk at Banana Republic, a dishwasher at a Mexican restaurant, and parking lot signaler.

Finally, Koeut filed for bankruptcy and asked Bankruptcy Juge Margaret Mann to discharge his student-loan debt, which totaled $440,000. A vocational evaluation expert assessed Koeut's job prospects and said Koeut would need additional training to meet his employment potential.

The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) opposed Koeut's application for a student-loan discharge and argued that he should be put in a long-term, income-based repayment plan (IBR). DOE also said Koeut failed to reach his employment potential because of a lack of initiative.

But Judge Mann disagreed. "A medical school graduate who works as a parking attendant and dishwasher cannot be described as lazy," she observed. She approved of Koeut's decision not to sign up for an IBR, which he rejected "because he could not carry the burden of his student debt without harming his opportunities for advancement."

In the end, Judge Mann discharged almost all of Koeut's student debt, finding that his current income and expenses did not permit him to maintain a minimum standard of living--even without making loan payments.

The Koeut case may be a sign that the bankruptcy judges are weary of DOE's incessant demands to put distressed student-loan debtors into IBRs. And perhaps they have grown tired of DOE's insistence that every bankrupt debtor's financial distress is entirely the debtor's fault.

Indeed, one cannot read Judge Mann's opinion without concluding that Seth Koeut had done everything possible to improve his standard of living and had handled his massive student-loan debt in good faith. Let us hope for more bankruptcy court decisions like Koeut v. U.S. Department of Education.

References

Koeut v. U.S. Department of Education, 622 B.R. 72 (Bankr. S.D. Cal. 2020).

Surprise! Betsy DeVos's Department of Education rejects Grand Canyon University's application for non-profit status

 Even a blind acorn finds a pig occasionally, and Betsy DeVos's Department of Education finally found a piggy: Grand Canyon University (GCU), which operated as a for-profit institution until 2018.

Last year, DOE rejected GCU's application for non-profit status. This surprised most people because Betsy DeVos is famous for coddling the for-profit college industry.

Not surprisingly, Grand Canyon is suing DOE to overturn the ruling. That's what for-profit colleges do when they don't get their way.

Why did DOE reject Grand Canyon's bid for non-profit status? After all, the university's accreditor and the IRS gave their approval. 

DOE said its decision was based in part on the fact that Grand Canyon University still maintains close financial ties with Grand Canyon Education (GCE), a publicly-traded for-profit corporation. (GCU stock is currently worth about $89 a share.) 

Although GCE sold its university assets to Gazelle University (which operates as Grand Canyon University), GCE still has financial ties to the university from which it profits. 

As DOE explained in an 18-page letter, Grand Canyon's new non-profit owner signed a Master Service Agreement (MSA) with GCE whereby the for-profit entity gets a majority of the revenue from university operations. Specifically:

Despite GCE only taking on the responsibilities of 48% of the operating costs, 60% of the gross adjusted revenue will be paid to GCE under the MSA.  When payments on the Senior Secured Note are included in the analysis, GCE will be receiving approximately 95% of Gazelle's revenue.

DOE also pointed out "that most of [Grand Canyon University's] key management personnel work for GCE, not Gazelle/GCU . . ." Thus, DOE concluded, "as a practical matter, Gazelle is not the entity actually operating the Institution . . . ."

Now you may be asking yourself why Grand Canyon Education, a publicly-traded Delaware corporation, went to the trouble of constructing a deal that would make Grand Canyon University a non-profit.

Undoubtedly, GCE was motivated partly by the desire to make Grand Canyon University seem less venal.  As a non-profit institution, it can claim to be more like traditional non-profit private universities like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

And there are regulatory advantages as well. DOE has regulations for the for-profit college industry that don't apply to traditional non-profit universities.

Bud DOE said no, and that was the right decision. A publicly-traded corporation should not be allowed to profit from a university that calls itself a nonprofit while shoveling its revenues to stockholders who are primarily interested in making money.

 

Teaching wild hogs to dance: Brookings says for-profit college system is broken and thinks it know how to fix it

 The Brookings Institution published a report this week calling attention to the for-profit college system's enormous abuses. "For-profit colleges have a long history of engaging in manipulative behavior to preserve the flow of [federal money] to their schools while providing their students with a poor education," authorsAirel Gelrud Shiro and Richard Reeves wrote.

In this report (and in an earlier paper released last November), Brookings researchers ticked off a litany of problems in the for-profit college industry:

• The for-profits only enroll 10 percent of postsecondary students, "but they account for half of all student-loan defaults."

• For profit-schools are about four times more expensive than community colleges.

• Black and Latino are overrepresented in this expensive college sector. Although they make up less than a third of all college students, "they represent nearly half of all who attend for-profit colleges."

• Black students who take out student loans to attend a for-profit have very high default rates. "Almost 60 percent of Black students who took on student debt to attend a for-profit school in 2004 defaulted on their loans by 2016 . . ."

• Research suggests a for-profit college education may be no better than no college at all. "Students may even incur net losses from for-profit attendance when debt is factored in."

OK, I'm convinced--the for-profit colleges are bad boys.  In fact, I was convinced back in  2012, when Senator Tom Harkin's committee released a scathing report on the for-profit college industry. 

But what are we going to do about it? 

Brookings researchers recommend more effective federal regulations. For example, Brookings wants to reinstate the "gainful employment" rule that the Obama administration introduced. Colleges whose students don't reach a certain debt-to-employment ratio would lose federal funds. And it wants a more transparent "College Scoreboard" for reporting the for-profits' student outcomes. 

But let's face facts.  Trying to reform the for-profit college industry is like trying to teach wild hogs to dance.  It ain't happening.

Postsecondary education should be inexpensive, and it should lead to good jobs.  Under that standard of measurement, the for-profits have failed.

So why doesn't Congress just shut them down?

Or failing that, why doesn't Congress at least allow the naive people who took out student loans to attend overpriced for-profit colleges and didn't benefit to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy?

How could anyone object to such a simple avenue of relief for the countless victims of the for-profit college scandal?

References

U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. For-Profit Higher Education: The Failure to Safeguard the Federal Investment and Ensure Student Success. 112 Congress, 2d Session, July 30, 2012. 

Let's do the "Gainful Employment" dance!

Woman enrolls in low-ranked law school, accumulates massive debt, and is academically dismissed only three credit hours from getting her degree: Is that fair?

 Jill Stevenson enrolled at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in 2002. She completed 87 credit hours toward completing her degree, but she was "academically dismissed" because her GPA dropped in her last year of study.

Stevenson took out student loans to pay for her legal education and entered an income-based repayment plan (IBRP) in 2006. This plan required her to make monthly payments on her student debt for 25 years. She made her payments faithfully for 14 years--a remarkable achievement. But her loan balance grew larger with each passing month because of accruing interest.

By the time she filed for bankruptcy and tried to get her student loans discharged, she owed the U.S. Department of Education $116,000, and the debt would continue growing until she finished her IBRP in 1931.  At that time, her student loans would be forgiven, but the forgiven amount is considered taxable income. Thus, when she is in her sixties, Miss Stevenson will face a huge tax bill.

This is a sad outcome, made sadder perhaps because Thomas M. Cooley has been ranked as one of the worst law schools in the United States.  Don't take my word for it.

Garrett Parker, writing for Money Inc., ranked Cooley as one of the 20 worst law schools in the United States in 2019. Parker said Cooley made the worst-law-school list "with flying colors."

Staci Zaretsky, writing for Above the Law (a terrific blog site) in 2018, listed Cooley as one of the ten worst law schools in the nation. In 2018, Zaretsky reported, Cooley admitted 86 percent of its applicants, including 135 students who scored in the bottom 12 percent on their LSAT tests. Cooley was the 2017 defending champion for worst law school, Zaretsky noted drily.

You want another take? David Frakt, "who serve[d] as chair of the National Advisory Council for Law School Transparency, [wrote] that 2017 defending champion Western Michigan University Thomas Cooley Law School repeats for 2018, claiming the number 1 spot on the list of bottom 10 schools."

My point is not to knock Cooley Law School--other people are doing an excellent job of that without my help. But let's think about Jill Stevenson.

Even if she graduated from Cooley, her prospects in the legal field would not have been bright. She made a smart decision to take a job as a paralegal. 

Nevertheless, Cooley dismissed her when she was three credit hours short of graduation. And all that student-loan money Stevenson paid the law school--Cooley kept that money.

And then the U.S. Department of Education shows up to fight her plea for bankruptcy relief, claiming she shouldn't have her student loans forgiven because she smokes cigarettes and cares for a disabled grandson.

This is the way Great Britain treated debtors in Charles Dickens's time. I thought America was better than that.

*****

Note: According to Inside Higher Ed, Thomas M. Cooley Law School affiliated with Western Michigan University in 2013 and changed its name to "Western Michigan University Cooley Law School. In November 2020, Western Michigan University's board of trustees voted to end its affiliation with the Cooley Law School. The disassociation will take three years to finalize. 

Attention Student Loan Debtors: The Department of Education may want a piece of your inheritance!

Jill Stevenson enrolled at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in 2002, but she never graduated. Although she completed 87 of the 90 credit hours she needed to get a law degree, she was academically dismissed because of her low GPA. Subsequently, Stevenson obtained work as a paralegal in New Mexico.

Stevenson borrowed $90,000 to fund her law studies. In 2006, she enrolled in an income-based repayment plan (IBRP), and she made regular payments under that plan for 14 years. Nevertheless, due to accruing interest, her loan balance grew to $116,000.

In 2019, Stevenson filed an adversary proceeding to discharge her student loans in bankruptcy. At the time of filing, her monthly payment under the IBRP was $259.

Educational Credit Management (ECMC) opposed Stevenson’s plea for bankruptcy relief. ECMC sent Stevenson a formal request for admission asking her to admit that she could make her IBRP monthly payments and still maintain a minimal standard of living.

 Initially, Stevenson admitted that she could maintain a minimal standard of living while making monthly payments of $259. She argued, however, that her loan balance was growing and she would face a substantial tax burden when her IBRP obligations ended 11 years in the future because the forgiven debt would be taxable to her as income.

She maintained this tax liability constituted an undue hardship in itself and entitled her to discharge her student debt in bankruptcy.

Later, Stevenson moved to revise her answer to ECMC’s request for admission to state that her expenses exceeded her income even if she was relieved of her student-loan debt.

ECMC asked Bankruptcy Judge David Thuma to dismiss Stevenson's case based on her admission that she could make her IBRP payments and still maintain a minimum standard of living. ECMC also objected to Stevenson’s attempt to amend her answer to its request for admission.

This is how Judge Thuma ruled. First, he said Stevenson was entitled to change her answer to ECMC’s request for admission. Second, he ruled that there was a factual dispute about whether Stevenson would suffer undue hardship if forced to repay her loans.

However, Judge Thuma ruled that Stevenson was not entitled to discharge her student loans in bankruptcy simply because she could face tax consequences when she completed her IBRP. “If  borrowers can pay some amount each month," Judge Thuma reasoned, "it would shortchange the government to discharge the debt before the end of the IBRP.”

Nevertheless, Judge Thuma added, the tax bill that Stevenson potentially faced in 11 years could be considered when determining whether it would be an undue burden to require Stevenson to repay her student loans.

Stevenson v. ECMC is significant for two reasons. First, the case demonstrates ECMC’s chief litigation strategy in student-loan bankruptcy cases.  ECMC almost always argues that it is never an undue hardship for a student borrower to make monthly payments under an IBRP.  In other words, from ECMC’s perspective, no one is entitled to discharge student loans in bankruptcy because income-based payments never constitute an undue hardship.

Second, and more disturbing, Judge Thuma took note of the fact that Stevenson’s elderly parents own valuable real estate—a strip mall. “If [Stevenson’s] financial situation changes (e.g., if she receives an inheritance), she might be able to repay her student loans."

Ms. Stevenson is 53 years old, and her parents are in their 80s. Unless her loans are discharged in Judge Thuma’s bankruptcy court, she will be required to make IBRP payments for 11 more years only to see her loan balance get larger.

Suppose Stevenson's parents die, and she receives an inheritance before paying off her student loans. In that case, Stevenson might find the Department of Education standing at her parents’ graveside (figuratively speaking), demanding to be paid. 

Does that seem fair to you? It does not seem fair to me.

References

Stevenson v. Educational Credit Management Corporation, Adv. No. 19-1085, 2020 WL 6122749 (Bankr. D.N.M. Oct. 16, 2020).

Thomas M. Cooley Law School

Jamie Mudd v. U.S. Department of Education: A Nebraska bankruptcy court discharges a grandmother's student loans

 Between 2006 and 2015, Jamie Mudd took out 41 student loans to attend Heald College, a for-profit institution, and San Joaquin Delta College, a public institution. In 2015, she rolled these loans into two consolidated federal loans, totally about $72,000. 

Mudd put her student loans into an income-based repayment plan (IBRP) that established her monthly payments at zero due to her low income.  Under this plan, she was obligated to certify her income on an annual basis. Evidently, she forgot to do this because the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) removed her from the IBRP and reset her monthly payments at almost $800 per month. 

Mudd was readmitted into an IBRP, but she again failed to certify her income, and DOE set her new monthly payment at $963.

According to Bankruptcy Judge Shon Hastings, Mudd never earned more than $13 an hour, and she often worked two jobs to make ends meet. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment and incurred regular expenses caring for a grandson with disabilities. She also suffered from significant health problems.

Ms. Mudd filed an adversary proceeding, hoping to discharge her student loans, but DOE objected. First, DOE said Mudd's financial circumstances would probably improve, enabling her to make modest payments in an IBRP.  Second, Mudd was a smoker, and DOE said she should save her cigarette money and use it to pay down her student loans. DOE also claimed that Mudd's expenses for her grandson's video streaming were unnecessary.  Indeed, DOE disapproved of any money Mudd spent on her grandson.

Fortunately, Bankruptcy Judge Shon Hastings was considerably more compassionate than DOE. In a decision issued last month, Judge Hastings discharged all of Mudd's student-loan debt.

In ruling in Mudd's favor, Judge Hastings applied the "totality of circumstances" test approved by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. This is a summary of his reasoning:

Mudd has made a good faith effort to maximize her income. Mudd works approximately 53 hours per week at two jobs. . . . Overall, Mudd's expenses are necessary and reasonable and consistent with a minimal standard of living. . . . She has no savings, owns no assets of significant value (except her used car in which she holds no equity), lives in a one-bedroom apartment and obtains food and toiletries from local nonprofit organizations to make ends met. Her medical expenses are higher than budgeted, and she anticipates that her health care costs will continue to rise due to her high cholesterol and diabetes.  

In short, Judge Hastings concluded, Mudd did not have sufficient disposable income to pay on her student loans. Thus, the judge discharged all of this debt.

Judge Hastings specifically rejected DOE's suggestion that Mudd should not be credited for the expenses she incurred for her grandson. "[T]he Court finds it entirely inappropriate to find or suggest that Mudd should not care for her grandson or to weigh undue burden factors against her for doing so." 

Judge Hasting's ruling should not surprise us. Clearly, Jamie Mudd was in dire financial straits and entitled to discharge her student loans in bankruptcy.

What is shocking is the fact that DOE objected. Mudd v. U.S. Department of Education is just one more example of the federal government's heartlessness toward college-loan debtors, heartlessness that borders on viciousness

References

Mudd v. U.S. Department of Education, Adversary No. 19-04048, 2020 WL 7330054 (Bank. D. Neb. Dec. 9, 2020).

Leary v. Great Lakes Educational Loan Services: New York Bankruptcy judge slaps student-loan servicer with a $378,000 contempt sanction

In September 2020, Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glen slapped a huge contempt penalty on Great Lakes Educational Loan Servicers--$378,629.62! Why? Because Great Lakes repeatedly refused to comply with Judge Glen's directives in a student-loan bankruptcy case.

Leary v. Great Lakes Educational Loan Servicers: The facts

In 2015, Sheldon Leary filed an adversary action in a New York bankruptcy court, seeking to discharge over $350,000 in student-loan debt. He amassed this debt to pay for his three children's college education.

Mr. Leary represented himself and properly served Great Lakes, his student-loan servicer. He didn't know, however, that he needed to sue the U.S. Department of Education as well. Great Lakes passed Mr. Leary's complaint on to DOE, but neither DOE nor Great Lakes answered Mr. Leary's lawsuit. In fact, Great Lakes forwarded fifteen pleadings to DOE, but neither DOE nor Great Lakes made an appearance in Judge Martin's court for quite some time.

In 2016, Mr. Leary obtained a default judgment against Great Lakes for failing to respond to his lawsuit, and Judge Glen discharged Leary's student-loan debt. DOE ignored this judgment and sent Mr. Leary two letters threatening to garnish his wages.

More than four years after filing his lawsuit, Leary moved to reopen his adversary proceeding and asked Judge Glen to find Great Lakes in contempt. Great Lakes still did not respond, and on April 29, 2020, Judge Glen held the loan servicer in contempt and assessed sanctions against it for $123,000.

Great Lakes did not pay this assessment, and Judge Glen held a second contempt hearing last August. At this hearing, Great Lakes made several arguments to avoid sanctions. First, it argued that it could not be held in contempt because it had not acted in bad faith. Judge Glen rejected this defense. Whether or not Great Lakes had acted in bad faith, the judge reasoned, it had ignored "clear and unambiguous" court orders and had not diligently tried to comply with them.

Great Lakes also argued that it transferred its loan processing job to another collection agent after Mr. Leary's lawsuit was filed, thus relieving itself of the obligation to respond to court pleadings. But that fact, the judge ruled, did not excuse Great Lakes from its duty to comply with court orders in Mr. Leary's lawsuit.

Finally, Great Lakes argued that sanctions were not warranted because Great Lake’s noncompliance had no impact on Leary’s litigation costs or his indebtedness. 

But Judge Glen didn't buy that argument either. In fact, he pointed out, Great Lakes' inaction had significantly injured Mr. Leary by causing him to suffer "aggravation, pain and suffering, negative credit ratings, loss of sleep, worry and marital strain."

Judge Glen:  Great Lakes was "grossly negligent"

In short, Judge Glen ruled, Great Lakes' inaction had been "grossly negligent" and "really much worse." As for Great Lakes' claim that its legal department was unaware that it was a named party in Mr. Leary's lawsuit, the judge found this argument "unbelievabl[e]."

The judge ordered Great Lakes to pay most of its sanction to DOE, in an amount sufficient to pay off Mr. Leary's student-loan obligations. Thus, in the end, Leary got the relief he sought in 2015.

Judge Glen did not find it necessary to hold DOE in contempt, but he did not find the agency blameless. As he noted in a footnote:

It should not be lost on anyone . . . that DOE's inaction with respect to Mr. Leary--especially when DOE had knowledge at multiple steps along the way that Great Lakes was ignoring its obligations to Mr. Leary as a named defendant in the adversary proceeding--is disappointing to say the least.

Judge Glen finds DOE’s conduct “highly questionable”

Judge Glen's decision fingered Great Lakes as the bad guy in the Leary case, but he found DOE's conduct to be "highly questionable." Obviously, DOE's lawyers knew what Great Lakes was doing and made no objection. It is hard to escape the conclusion that DOE deliberately allowed Great Lakes to flout Judge Glen's orders in order to sabotage Mr. Leary's attempt to discharge his student loans in bankruptcy.

References

Leary v. Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, 620 B.R. 39 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y 2020).