Gov’t Loosens Barriers To Student Class Actions

The Department of Education wants to make it harder for colleges to require students to settle debt disputes in arbitration. “The Department is working to ensure that no college can dodge accountability by burying ‘gotchas’ in fine print that blocks students from seeking the redress they’re due,” said Ted Mitchell, undersecretary for DOE. For-profit colleges have come under fire for including mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses in agreements students must sign before signing up for classes. “I just don’t think that there’s a plausible justification for using these provisions in an educational context,” said Eileen Connor, director of litigation at the project on predatory student lending at Harvard Law school.