MA Students At 'Predatory' Art Colleges Get Loans Forgiven: AG

MASSACHUSETTS — Thousands of students from Massachusetts who attended a now-shuttered chain of “predatory” arts colleges will have their loans forgiven, according to the Attorney General Andrea Campbell and the U.S. Department of Education.

About 3,500 students who attended Arts Institute colleges — including the former New England Institute of Art in Brookline — between 2004 and 2017 will have a total of about $80 million forgiven.

The now bankrupt Education Management Corporation ran over 100 Arts Institute colleges in the U.S. The last of the schools closed in September.

“These predatory for-profit schools harmed vulnerable students for their own financial gain, leaving student borrowers burdened with debt and without viable job or financial prospects,” Campbell said in a news release Wednesday. “Thanks in part to the diligent work of my office, I, alongside the Department of Education, am tremendously proud to announce meaningful debt relief for former students of The Art Institutes and help advance consumer and economic justice for these struggling borrowers.”

Following a state lawsuit in 2018, the New England Institute of Art was found to have broken the state Consumer Protection Act by lying to students about what types of jobs they would get upon graduation. Tuition at the New England Institute of Art ran close to $19,000 per year, not counting room and board.

In total, 315,000 former Arts Institute students will get their debt forgiven, totaling about $6.1 billion.