Institutional Debt
Preventing schools from trapping students in a cycle of debt.
Students deserve an affordable higher education free from debt. In addition to federal and private student loans, institutions often saddle students with “institutional debt” owed directly to the school for unpaid or hidden costs, fees, and fines. These new debts can be disastrous for students: colleges can prevent them from obtaining their transcripts, re-enrolling in courses, completing their degree, and can even place them in private collections and force them to lose tax refunds and other benefits.
What We’re Doing
While we fight for the promise of free public college, we’re working to end hidden or unexpected institutional debts and fees across higher education. Protect Borrowers is working to highlight and end the crisis of institutional debt by:
- Publishing groundbreaking research on institutional debt and its consequences.
- Leading statewide efforts to protect students by banning transcript withholding, placing guardrails on the use of third-party debt collectors, and allowing students to re-enroll in courses to get back on track.
- Ensuring that the U.S. Department of Education revised rules to prevent colleges from withholding transcripts for classes paid for with federal financial aid.
By The Numbers
6.6 million students
Nationwide, 6.6 million students collectively owe their schools as much as $15 billion in institutional debts.
$350 million in debt
In California alone, 750,000 low-income students accumulated $350 million in institutional debts at the beginning of the pandemic.
1-in-4 students
More than 1-in-4 students across the country are now protected by state law from transcript withholding.
In The News
Featured Work
EXPLORE OUR OTHER WORK
PREDATORY LENDING & PRIVATE CREDIT
We believe that opportunity should not come with a lifetime of debt. We are fighting to hold private companies accountable, demanding justice for families and rewriting the rules that shape how private credit is extended, serviced, collected, and reported across the economy.
SHADOW STUDENT DEBT
We expose how predatory schools and finance companies work together to drive students to take on billions of dollars in debt—spread across credit cards, home equity loans, and other private credit—to finance their education. Once students take on these debts, they face aggressive debt collection practices which leave borrowers in distress and drowning in debt.
PRIVATE STUDENT LENDING
We shed light on the unique risks and harms experienced by students and families in the growing private student loan market and push for policy change to strengthen borrowers’ rights and protections.
INCOME SHARE AGREEMENTS
We are fighting to hold Wall Street and Silicon Valley accountable for a years-long scheme to drive students into predatory Income Share Agreements.
BOOTCAMPS
We are fighting to hold bootcamp operators accountable for years of mismanagement and abuse.
SCAM SCHOOLS
We work with state and federal policymakers to protect families from low-quality, predatory schools and online tech companies that leave students with worthless degrees and training and mountains of debt.
FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES
Private companies provide education and training to students across the economy, advertising careers in fields from tech to healthcare. Too often, these companies scam students, promising the American Dream and delivering debt and distress. We investigate and build lawsuits against scam schools, including the corporations that run global for-profit colleges and fly-by-night training providers who target first-generation students, military families, and students of color.
ONLINE PROGRAM MANAGERS
Across higher education, private companies known as Online Program Managers or OPMs contract with colleges and universities to provide services ranging from marketing, recruitment, and advertising to instruction and curriculum development. Often, students are unaware of the existence of the private company and the role it plays in their education. Students take on debt to access what they believe to be a quality education from a name-brand institution with a good reputation, when they’re actually attending a low-quality online program run by a private firm. We are working with policymakers to protect students from OPMs, and calling on regulators to investigate the partnerships and enforce existing consumer protection laws.