If you borrowed federal student loans to attend Heald College, your debt was most likely wiped out years ago. Heald College loan forgiveness arrived for most former students in June 2022, when the Department of Education approved a blanket discharge covering every federal student loan taken out to attend any Corinthian Colleges campus from 1995 through the chain’s closure in April 2015. That single action canceled debt for roughly 560,000 borrowers with no application required. If your loans somehow weren’t included, several routes to full cancellation are still open.
The 2022 Corinthian Group Discharge
Heald was part of Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit chain the Department of Education penalized after finding the school had fabricated job placement rates and misled students about whether their credits would transfer. Based on those findings, the Department determined that every federal loan borrower who attended a Corinthian school qualified for full cancellation.
The discharge covered Direct Loans, Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program loans held by the Department, and Perkins Loans. No paperwork was needed. The Department also committed to deleting adverse credit history tied to those loans and restoring federal student aid eligibility for borrowers whose Corinthian defaults had locked them out of further aid.
Check your account at StudentAid.gov. If you attended Heald between 1995 and April 2015 and borrowed federal loans, your balance should show as zero with a discharge notation. If it doesn’t, call your loan servicer and ask whether the group discharge was applied.
Who Still Needs to Apply
The group action was sweeping, but a few borrowers slipped through. You may need to take additional steps if you hold commercially-held FFEL Program loans that were never transferred to the Department. Borrower defense relief applies to Direct Loans, so FFEL or Perkins borrowers whose loans sit with commercial lenders generally need to consolidate into a federal Direct Consolidation Loan before qualifying.1eCFR. 34 CFR 685.206 You may also need to apply individually if your records weren’t captured in the Department’s data, or if you enrolled through a teach-out arrangement after the official closure date and didn’t complete it.
Private student loans are a separate matter and aren’t covered by any of the federal programs below. The private “Genesis” loans Corinthian pushed on students have their own relief track, covered later.
Closed School Discharge
Closed school discharge turns on timing. You qualify if you were enrolled at Heald when it closed on April 27, 2015, or if you withdrew no more than 180 calendar days before that date (on or after October 29, 2014).2eCFR. 34 CFR 685.214 – Closed School Discharge The Secretary of Education can extend the 180-day window for exceptional circumstances, and Corinthian’s documented fraud history makes that extension more likely for borderline cases.
One condition disqualifies people: if you completed your program, or transferred credits to a comparable program at another school, you lose eligibility. “Comparable” is read broadly. Even transferring a handful of credits to a similar program elsewhere can disqualify you. If you enrolled in an unrelated program at another school and brought no Heald credits with you, your eligibility should still stand.
A successful closed school discharge cancels 100 percent of eligible federal loans and entitles you to a refund of any payments you previously made on those loans.3Federal Student Aid. Federal Student Aid Knowledge Center – Closed School Discharge Changes
Some Heald borrowers received an automatic closed school discharge without filing anything. If you were enrolled on April 27, 2015, and never transferred or re-enrolled anywhere else, your servicer records may already show the discharge complete. If not, submit a closed school discharge application through your loan servicer. The form is on the Federal Student Aid website, and it asks you to confirm your enrollment dates and that you didn’t finish your program or transfer credits.
Individual Borrower Defense Claims
Borrower defense to repayment is the other main path. Rather than depending on closure timing, it rests on the school’s misconduct: you argue that Heald’s misrepresentations caused you financial harm because you relied on false information when deciding to enroll and borrow.
For Heald students, the Department has already made the institutional findings. The school falsified employment statistics and made misleading claims about credit transferability. That does the heavy lifting on your individual claim. You still need to document your personal experience: what the school told you, how it shaped your decision, and what it cost you financially.
The legal standard depends on when your loans were disbursed. Loans disbursed before July 1, 2017, are evaluated under the law of the state where the school operated. Loans disbursed between July 1, 2017, and July 1, 2023, fall under a separate federal standard focused on substantial misrepresentation.1eCFR. 34 CFR 685.206 Since Heald closed in 2015, virtually all Heald loans are evaluated under the pre-2017 state-law standard, which generally means California law for the California campuses.
The Sweet v. McMahon Settlement
A major class action, originally filed as Sweet v. Cardona and now known as Sweet v. McMahon, created an additional layer of relief for borrowers who had filed borrower defense claims. The settlement, approved in November 2022, imposed binding deadlines on the Department to process those claims. Corinthian schools, including Heald, were listed on the settlement’s Exhibit C, which entitled associated borrowers to full relief.4Federal Student Aid. Sweet v. McMahon Settlement
The settlement required the Department to decide post-class borrower defense applications (those submitted between June 23, 2022, and November 15, 2022) by January 28, 2026. Any application not decided by that deadline triggers automatic full settlement relief: complete loan forgiveness, refunds of past payments, and corrected credit reporting. The Department twice asked the court to extend the deadline, and the court denied both requests.5Project on Predatory Student Lending. Statement on Sweet v. McMahon Court Filing
If you filed a borrower defense application during that June-to-November 2022 window and haven’t received a decision, you should be entitled to full settlement relief. Contact your loan servicer, or check the quarterly reports on the Federal Student Aid settlement page.4Federal Student Aid. Sweet v. McMahon Settlement
How to Submit an Application
Which form you file depends on your situation. Closed school discharge applications go directly to your federal loan servicer. Borrower defense applications live on the Federal Student Aid site at StudentAid.gov/borrower-defense and can be submitted online or mailed to the Department of Education.
A strong borrower defense application includes specific details about what Heald told you before enrollment. Write down what recruiters said about job placement, salary expectations, or credit transfer. Explain how those statements turned out to be false and how they affected your finances. Attach anything you still have: enrollment agreements, marketing materials, emails, financial aid paperwork. The Department already holds extensive institutional findings against Heald, so your personal account doesn’t need to prove the fraud from scratch. It needs to connect your experience to the documented misconduct.
Once a borrower defense application is submitted, the Department generally places the associated loans into forbearance. Monthly payments pause, and collection activity on defaulted loans stops while the claim is under review. You’ll eventually receive a written decision.
If Your Claim Is Denied
A denial isn’t the end. Federal regulations allow you to request reconsideration within 90 days of the written decision on three grounds: an administrative or technical error in the original decision, consideration under an applicable state law standard (for loans disbursed before July 1, 2017), or new evidence you didn’t previously provide and that wasn’t addressed in the denial.6eCFR. 34 CFR 685.407 – Reconsideration
The reconsideration request must be submitted on a Department-approved form under penalty of perjury, with supporting documentation attached. If your original application was thin on personal detail or evidence, this is your chance to strengthen it. Gather additional records, be specific about what you were told and when, and respond directly to anything the Department flagged.
Genesis Private Loans
Corinthian steered many students into high-cost private student loans branded as “Genesis Loans.” These are not eligible for any federal discharge program. However, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a separate agreement that secured roughly $480 million in debt relief for Genesis borrowers. Eligible borrowers received an automatic 40 percent reduction in their outstanding private loan balances.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Secures $480 Million in Debt Relief for Current and Former Corinthian Students
If you had Genesis loans and never received notice of that relief, contact the current loan holder. The debt may have changed hands more than once since Corinthian’s closure, so you may need to track down the servicer now managing the account.
Refunds, Credit Corrections, and Pell Grant Restoration
Forgiveness for Heald borrowers goes beyond a zero balance.
Payment Refunds
Borrowers who made payments on discharged Direct Loans or Department-held FFEL loans are entitled to refunds of those payments. For the 2022 group discharge, refunds were supposed to be processed automatically. If you made payments and haven’t seen a refund, contact your servicer. Full relief under the Sweet settlement also includes refunds, though processing has stretched; court filings indicate relief should be delivered within one year of an eligibility notice.
Credit Report Corrections
The Department announced it would delete adverse credit history tied to discharged Corinthian loans. Late payments, defaults, and collection records connected to your Heald loans should be removed. If your credit report still shows negative marks from loans that were discharged, dispute the entries with the credit bureaus and reference the Department’s discharge determination.
Pell Grant Eligibility Restoration
Federal Pell Grants have a lifetime cap, and the semesters you spent at Heald counted against it. After an eligible loan discharge, the Department restores your Pell Grant Lifetime Eligibility Used (LEU) for the award years tied to the discharged school. The process runs automatically in batches once the Department verifies both the loan discharge and a corresponding Pell Grant award at the same school for the same year.8Federal Student Aid. Guidance on COD Processing of Pell Grant Restoration for Eligible Loan Discharges If you plan to return to school and a financial aid office tells you you’ve used too much Pell eligibility, ask them to check whether your LEU was adjusted for the Heald discharge.
Federal Tax Treatment of Discharged Loans
The American Rescue Plan Act made all student loan forgiveness tax-free at the federal level, but that provision expired on December 31, 2025.9Taxpayer Advocate Service. What to Know about Student Loan Forgiveness and Your Taxes Starting in 2026, some types of discharged student debt are once again treated as taxable income.
Heald borrowers have less reason to worry. Closed school discharge and borrower defense to repayment carry their own separate tax exclusions that predate the ARP and remain in effect. Those discharges are generally not treated as taxable income at the federal level regardless of when they’re processed. The taxability concern applies mainly to income-driven repayment plan forgiveness, not to fraud-based or closure-based discharges.
State income tax treatment varies. Some states follow the federal exclusions; others may treat discharged debt differently. If you received a large discharge in 2026 or later, consult a tax professional in your state to see whether anything is owed locally.