Dive Brief:

• About 150 former Corinthian Colleges students have joined a debt strike, refusing to pay back federal student loans they say the U.S. Department of Education should officially discharge.
• The New York Times reports the department’s dual roles as lender and debt collector create conflict, though Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell says it allows the department to focus on student welfare.
• The department is deciding whether to let the striking students argue that their colleges injured them as a group, rather than making them all prove individual injury, but The New York Times reports Mitchell is leaning toward the latter.

Dive Insight:

The Department of Education’s role as a government entity also requires it to be cognizant of using taxpayer dollars wisely. Corinthian Colleges Inc. received more than $1 billion in federal student aid money in 2013, when it was operating at full throttle. If the strikers and other former Corinthian students get debt relief it could end up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But proponents of this option argue the students have been defrauded and deserve to be rescued.