Independence University Borrower Defense and Loan Relief

If you attended Independence University, this is not just another story about a school facing complaints. The U.S. Department of Education has already made a nationwide finding of widespread misconduct by the university's operator and approved automatic federal student loan discharge through Borrower Defense to Repayment for eligible borrowers.

The biggest development: automatic discharge was approved

In January 2025, the Department approved group relief for borrowers who enrolled at a Center for Excellence in Higher Education school on or after January 1, 2006, and before August 1, 2021. Independence University is expressly included. The Department says affected borrowers are eligible for automatic discharge of their related federal student loans and do not need to submit a Borrower Defense application to receive it. Across the CEHE school group, the action covered approximately 73,600 borrowers and 1.15 billion dollars in loans. See the official CEHE Borrower Defense findings and the government relief announcement.

Still seeing an Independence University balance? Do not assume it will resolve on its own. Confirm that your enrollment dates and school-related federal loans are correctly identified. 

👉 Check your eligibility and next steps.

What did federal investigators find?

The Department concluded that CEHE made widespread and pervasive misrepresentations across its campuses and online programs. Its findings focused on 3 issues that mattered directly to enrollment decisions:

• Salary claims that suggested CEHE graduates earned amounts comparable to national averages, despite internal data showing substantially lower earnings.
• Employment rates inflated by counting graduates who were not working in their field, kept jobs they already held before enrolling, or obtained only short-term work.
• EduPlan loans marketed as affordable even though CEHE's own information showed serious repayment problems.

Department said borrowers relied on these representations to their detriment. It relied heavily on evidence from multi-year investigations by the Colorado and Arizona attorneys general. Those findings are unusually strong borrower defense evidence because they come from the federal agency that administers the program.

Lawsuits, investigations, and closure

This history did not appear overnight. The Colorado Attorney General sued CEHE in 2014 and later asked the Department to cancel loans for former CollegeAmerica and Independence University students. The state reported findings involving overstated placement rates, claims about higher income or better jobs, and representations about CEHE's private education loan.

In a separate federal case, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a False Claims Act complaint against Stevens-Henager College and CEHE alleging illegal incentive compensation for recruiters. That complaint concerned an affiliated school and the common operator, not a direct adjudication against Independence University, so it is best used as supporting organizational context rather than proof of an individual claim.

Independence University then closed on August 1, 2021, along with other CEHE schools, according to Federal Student Aid's closure notice.

Independence University is on Sweet v. Cardona Exhibit C

Independence University also appears on the official Sweet v. Cardona settlement Exhibit C. Under the settlement, qualifying class members with loans tied to Exhibit C schools received full settlement relief. Inclusion alone did not automatically make every former student a Sweet class member, but it is important public context showing that Independence University was among the schools associated with the settlement's Borrower Defense claims.

The later CEHE group discharge is separate and broader: it covers eligible Independence University borrowers in the federal enrollment window even if they never filed a Borrower Defense application.

What should former students do now?

If your Independence University federal loans remain active, your dates fall outside the group discharge window, or you are unsure whether every eligible loan was included, get a case specific review before filing anything unnecessary.

👉  Check your Independence University eligibility now

Prefer to handle the process yourself? Use the Borrower Defense Do It Yourself guide. You can also review misconduct research for other published schools or search the complete list of schools and universities.

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