STOCKTON, Calif. — Financial relief is coming soon to 28,000 students of a multi-state beauty school that closed in 2016 following allegations by the U.S. Department of Education of widespread misconduct.
The Department of Education announced Thursday $238 million has been approved to be discharged to 28,000 Marinello Schools of Beauty borrowers. The beauty school, which opened in 2009, closed all 56 locations in 2016 following the U.S. Department of Education's removal of the school from federal student aid programs.
The department made the move following a 2015 investigation that found widespread misconduct at the beauty schools. The alleged misconduct included claims the school left students without instructors for weeks or months at a time and failed to train students on basic elements such as how to cut hair.
Several of Marinello School of Beauty's 56 campuses were located in Northern California including locations in Sacramento, Stockton and San Francisco.
According to the Department of Education, they will begin notifying students who attended Marinello and still owe the federal government for loans about their debt forgiveness. The department says borrowers do not need to take further action to receive their discharges.
Before Thursday's approval of the $238 million in funding for the group, former students had to file an individual borrower defense claim. The Department of Education reports that only 300 of those individual claims had been approved before Thursday.
The announcement marked the first group discharge for defrauded borrowers approved by the federal government since 2017.
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