Borrowers sue over denied loan relief

Kendrick Gaussoin pulled his car up to the Brooks Institute campus in Ventura, Calif., in August 2016 to find the doors chained shut. The private, for-profit photography school had suddenly closed, leaving him and other students with large debts and no degree. He has spent the last decade trying to move forward, but now he is fighting the federal government to have his loans erased.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court claims the Trump administration is illegally refusing to follow the rules for closed school discharge. The suit was brought by Student Defense, a nonprofit borrower advocacy group, on behalf of Gaussoin and potentially thousands of other borrowers. Federal law has required the secretary of education to cancel debts for qualified borrowers whose schools close since the 1990s.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, more than 1,100 colleges closed between 2010 and 2020. That closure made 246,000 borrowers eligible for discharge. Traditionally, borrowers must have been enrolled at the time of closure or left no more than six months before it. Gaussoin did not qualify under those standard rules because he took an eight-month leave of absence in December 2015 to work as a photographer.

In January 2025, the Education Department expanded the look-back window for borrowers at several closed schools, including Brooks. An order signed by then-undersecretary James Kvaal on Jan. 6, 2025, stated that the schools closed under exceptional circumstances. This change made Gaussoin eligible for discharge and a refund of past payments.

Gaussoin applied for the discharge on Aug. 23, 2026, citing the new eligibility rules. A week later, the department denied his request in a letter dated Aug. 31. The denial stated he did not meet the pre-Biden requirements. Spokesperson Ellen Keast told NPR that the previous administration used a digital pen to inappropriately expand the discharge period for targeted institutions.

Bonnie Latreille, a former top official in the office of Federal Student Aid, says the secretary has the legal authority to expand the window. She notes that in November 2019, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos used the same authority to expand eligibility for borrowers at the Art Institute of Colorado and the Illinois Institute of Art. Latreille says the current refusal to process discharges under the new rules raises legal flags.

Latreille told NPR that a top department official instructed her not to process closed school discharges using the expanded window without approval from the incoming Trump team. Two other former officials, who requested anonymity due to professional concerns, corroborated this account. Attorneys for Student Defense argue the administration must build a reasoned legal explanation to reverse the changes, rather than ignoring them.

Gaussoin now works for an online retailer and has nearly $22,000 in student loan debt. His mother, Christine Gaussoin, who took out Parent PLUS loans, owes about $28,000. Her application for discharge was also denied this month. She says the school promised her son would be debt-free, but instead they are both saddled with the cost of an unfinished degree.