Approximately 1,415 former students residing in Connecticut will receive debt relief as a result of a settlement between 49 attorneys general and the for-profit education company Career Education Corp.

Overall, CEC has agreed to reform its recruiting and enrollment practices and will forgo collecting approximately $493.7 million in debts owed by 179,529 students nationally. Under the terms of the agreement, CEC will pay $5 million to the states. Nationally, the average individual debt relief will be about $2,750.

“For far too long, unscrupulous for-profit colleges have put money before people, engaged in deceptive recruiting practices, and left students with a burden of crushing debt while providing them with useless degrees that wouldn’t lead them to gainful employment,” Attorney General George Jepsen said in a statement. “Today, we are holding Career Education Corp. responsible for the misrepresentations it made to these students. It is my hope that this debt relief will help to ease the burden on students who were trying to better themselves, their careers and their livelihoods but were instead tricked into programs and degrees that were sometimes worthless.”

CEC primarily offers online courses through American InterContinental University and Colorado Technical University. The company closed or phased out many of its schools over the past decade, and included brands such as Briarcliffe College, Brooks Institute, International Academy of Design & Technology, Brown College and Le Cordon Bleu.

The states’ investigation found that CEC used emotionally charged language to pressure students into enrolling in CEC schools and deceived students about the total costs of enrollment. Admissions representatives were instructed to inform prospective students only about the cost per credit hour without disclosing the total number of required credit hours.

The states also alleged that CEC misled students about the transferability of credits and misrepresented the potential for students to obtain employment by failing to disclose that certain programs lacked necessary accreditation and by distorting graduation and job placement rates.

The states further contended that students who enrolled in CEC would not have otherwise done so, could later not obtain professional licensure, and were saddled with substantial debts that they could not repay or discharge.

Under the settlement, CEC must:

• Be accurate in its representations regarding accreditation, selectivity, graduation rates, placement rates, transferability of credit, financial aid, veterans’ benefits and licensure requirements.
• Not enroll students in programs that do not lead to state licensure when required for employment.
• Provide a single-page disclosure to each student that includes anticipated total direct cost to the student, the program completion rate, median earnings for completers and the job placement rate, among other information.
• Not engage in deceptive or abusive recruiting practices, and not contact students who indicate they no longer wish to be contacted.
• Implement disclosures that provide specific information about debt burden and post-graduation income.
• Establish a risk-free trial period for undergraduate students.