Where are Corinthian Colleges founders now? Biden admin cancels $5.8 billion in student debt
President Joe Biden's administration announced on Wednesday, June 1, that it will automatically cancel federal student loans owned by more than a half-million borrowers who attended the Corinthian Colleges chain. The administration aims to bring closure to one of the most notorious cases of fraud in American higher education.
According to the new debt relief, anyone who attended the now-defunct chain from its founding in 1995 to its collapse in 2015 will get their federal student debt wiped clean. It will erase $5.8 billion in debt for more than 560,000 borrowers, the largest single loan discharge in Education Department history, according to the agency. "As of today, every student deceived, defrauded, and driven into debt by Corinthian Colleges can rest assured that the Biden-Harris Administration has their back and will discharge their federal student loans," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said. "For far too long, Corinthian engaged in the wholesale financial exploitation of students, misleading them into taking on more and more debt to pay for promises they would never keep."
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Who founded Corinthian Colleges, Inc.?
Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (CCi) was a large for-profit post-secondary education company in North America. Corinthian Colleges was founded in February 1995, by David Moore, Paul St. Pierre, Frank McCord, Dennis Devereux, Jack Massimino and Lloyd Holland of National Education Centers, Inc., a for-profit operator of vocational schools based in Irvine, California. Its subsidiaries offered career-oriented diploma and degree programs in health care, business, criminal justice, transportation technology and maintenance, construction trades, and information technology.
Corinthian Colleges operated over one hundred Everest, Heald, and WyoTech campuses throughout the United States and Canada. Corinthian Colleges had poor performance in terms of quality of education and ultimately the founders of the school filed for bankruptcy in 2015.
Where are the Corinthian Colleges founders now?
Information on the founders of the Corinthian Colleges is limited online. While history of their careers are available prior to 2015, few have knowledge of their current situation. Here's a little glimpse of what they did before 2015.
Moore was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Corinthian Colleges Inc. In August 2001, Moore was elected Chairman of the Board. In addition, he served as the company's President from its inception until October 2002. In 2007, Corinthian Colleges, Inc. reported that Moore had decided not to stand for re-election to the board of directors. He retired from the board effective November 15, 2007. Mark Luburic, notes in his blog that in response to Haiti’s devastating earthquake in 2010, David and his wife founded a non-profit organization called the “Haiti Youth Fund.” According to the organization’s website, their mission is “to provide financial and technical assistance to orphanages.”
Paul St. Pierre served on the executive board from 1995 to 2001. Luburic writes that, as an executive, he collected over $1.8 million in salary. In 2004 St. Pierre sold 418,022 shares of his owned Corinthian stock for over $23 million. He and his family enjoy living in a luxurious estate in the hills of San Juan Capistrano. The family reportedly founded a non-profit organization called St. Pierre Foundation. According to the organization’s IRS 990 form, the organization’s total income for 2014 was over $200,000. The foundation donated over $76,000 dollars to various recipients.
Frank McCord was a Corinthian co-founder and early investor, who retired as chief financial officer in 2000. He collected over $1 million dollars in income while he served as an executive member of the college. He and his wife, Janet McCord, along with their daughter, live in Huntington Beach, California. His wife Janet's Facebook page shows them enjoying a luxurious vacation in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in early 2016. It is reported that Frank and Janet have donated money to the Republican National Committee throughout the past few years.
Dennis Devereux is a founder and served on the executive board from 1995 until 2003. He earned a collective $4 million during his tenure. Luburic writes, that in 2012, he and his wife Cheryl formed Devereux Investments LLC. The LLC was registered at their home address and was canceled in 2015. In 2014, he and his wife donated between $25,000 and $50,000 to St. Catherine’s Academy, a private, Catholic military school for boys in Anaheim, California.
Jack Massimino, the former Corinthian CEO was docked just $80,000. He wasn’t even barred from future executive or board roles at publicly traded companies.
Disclaimer: The information in this section contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.
'More debt to pay for promises they would never keep'
Vice President Kamala Harris is set to formally announce the loan forgiveness — which marks the largest ever single discharge of federal student loan debt —during remarks at the Education Department on Thursday, June 2. She’ll be joined by Secretary Miguel Cardona and other officials. In 2013, as attorney general of California, Harris sued Corinthian, one of the largest for-profit colleges in the country, which pushed the company out of business.
Tens of thousands of former Corinthian students were already eligible for debt cancellation, but they had to file paperwork and navigate an application process that advocates say is confusing and not widely known about. Now, the relief will be made automatic and extended to additional borrowers. Those who have a remaining balance on their Corinthian debt will also get refunds on payments they have already made, Education Department officials said.
“For far too long, Corinthian engaged in the wholesale financial exploitation of students, misleading them into taking on more and more debt to pay for promises they would never keep,” Secretary Cardona said in a statement. Reportedly, the Corinthian Colleges chain was accused by the state and federal agencies, including the Education Department, of misleading borrowers about job prospects and potential earnings after graduation, among other things.
“We’ve reached a determination that every borrower who attended Corinthian was subject to illegal conduct at Corinthian,” another senior administration official told reporters on Wednesday. The official said the Education Department “determined that these Corinthian borrowers as a group are eligible for borrower defense.”
Victory for Corinthian students
Many consumer advocacy groups and other activists who had earlier appealed to the Educational Department to forgive the loans of Corinthian borrowers praised the move, though urged the Biden administration to go further. Eileen Connor, director of Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending, which represents many Corinthian borrowers in court said the relief was a “tremendous student victory.”
“I’m happy that our loans are being discharged, but the battle is not over. There’s way more that we have to do,” said Latonya Suggs, one of the original debt strikers, who added that she struggled for years after attending a Corinthian-owned school.