2020 Guide to the Anthem College Lawsuit & Student Loan Forgiveness Program

NEWS ALERT: On Thursday, December 13th 2018 the Department of Education announced they will begin issuing Borrower’s Defense to Repayment Discharges for up to $150,000,000 in contested student loans, and there’s a very good chance that Anthem College refunds are on the way!

The DOE began emailing borrowers on Friday December 14th to alert them that their debts from Anthem have been cancelled, so make sure that you’re watching emails closely if you’ve already submitted a BDAR application.

If you haven’t yet filed for a BDAR Discharge against Anthem, then make sure to get your application in NOW to increase the odds it gets approved in this wave of forgiveness, otherwise you may have to wait some time before funds are made available again.

How to Qualify for an Anthem Student Loan Discharge or Refund

In 2019, it’s relatively easy to get rid of student loans from Anthem College, via two excellent student loan forgiveness programs available to former students, the Borrower’s Defense To Repayment Program and the Closed School Loan Discharge program.

In this post, I’ll give you all the information you need to know about taking advantage of either program, including details about who qualifies for each program, how to apply to the programs, and how to write your Anthem College Borrower’s Defense application to increase the chances that your discharge request will be approved.

Quick Links

To skip ahead to the section of this Guide where I walk you through each program in detail, please click the links below:

1. How to Use the Borrower’s Defense Against Repayment Program
2. How to Use the Closed School Student Loan Discharge Program

If you’re a former student of Anthem College seeking student loan forgiveness then you’ve certainly come to the right place, because these two programs are your best bets for getting rid of your debt fast!

And if you’re worried that these loan forgiveness programs aren’t for real, I can assure you that they are 100% legitimate, U.S. Government-run programs offering complete Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Benefits to people just like you.

While there are tons of Student Loan Forgiveness Scams floating around the Internet these days, you can trust these programs to eliminate your student loans entirely, and potentially even get you refunds for whatever amount of money you’ve already paid out.

Get Help With Your Loans!

If you're truly struggling with student loan debt, then you should consider paying a Student Loan Debt Relief Agency for help. Why? Because the people working at these companies deal with student loans all day, every day, and they're your best chance at figuring out how to get your loans back under control.

For help with Federal Student Loans call the Student Loan Relief Helpline at 1-888-906-3065. They will review your case, evaluate your options for switching repayment plans, consolidating your loans, or pursuing forgiveness benefits, then set you up to get rid of the debt as quickly as possible.

For help with Private Student Loans call McCarthy Law PLC at 1-877-317-0455. McCarthy Law will negotiate with your lender to settle your private loans for much less than you currently owe (typically 40%), then get you a new loan for the lower, settled amount so you can pay off the old loan, repair your credit and reduce your monthly payments.

I've spent 10 years interviewing debt relief agencies, talking to all sorts of "experts", and these are the only two companies that I trust to help my readers. If you have a bad experience with either of them, please make sure to come back and let me know about it in the Comments!

The Anthem College Lawsuit

Anthem College shut its doors in 2014 after being investigated by the US Senate for misleading students about the quality of its programs.

Per the allegations of a lawsuit filed against the school, many students left Anthem with a mountain of student loan debt and an inability to find a job in their field because they were found to have been improperly trained.

The lawsuit against Anthem generated a lot of discussion, and if you look anywhere online you’ll it helped open the flood-gates for negative Anthem College reviews, with thousands of people registering their discontent over the school.

Thanks to the widely published, publicly available complaints, Anthem College is a relatively easy target for Borrower’s Defense to Repayment Applications, which is the main reason why you want to seriously consider taking advantage of this exceptional loan forgiveness program.

Discharging Anthem College Loans via Borrower’s Defense Against Repayment

The Borrower’s Defense Against Repayment program (often abbreviated as BDAR) was created to help students eliminate student loans that never should have existed in the first place.

What’s that mean? It means that if you only took out loans to attend Anthem because the school or some third party recruiter lied to you about the value of their education programs, then you may be eligible for a complete student loan discharge.

Anthem College was found to have broken Federal laws by making false advertising claims, and that’s what makes it possible to wipe out your Anthem-related loans via Borrower’s Defense; this program lets you get rid of the debt that was only created based on fraudulent activity!

Thousands of other former students of Anthem College have already received student loan forgiveness benefits through the Borrower’s Defense program, and you can too – all you need to do is fill out the official BDAR Application, then sit patiently while you wait for a response from the Department of Education.

However, let me make one thing clear: it can take OVER A YEAR to hear back from the DOE about the status of your application (whether you’ll be approved or denied), so it’s important to get your application filled out correctly, and persuasively, the first time around.

The most important part of that application is not that you mention that Anthem loans are being discharged right and left for fraudulent behavior, but that you personally experienced fraudulent behavior from the school, and that you never would have taken out the loans to attend Anthem had you not been lied to, tricked, or defrauded in some way.

In a nutshell, you have to prove to the DOE that you were personally impacted by the school’s fraudulent activity, as that’s the only way they can approve your BDAR Discharge request.

If your BDAR application is properly filled out by making a convincing claim that you were truly defrauded by the school, and never would have borrowed money for their programs otherwise, then you’ll receive loan forgiveness for whatever amount of money you still owe for Anthem higher education programs, and you may even be refunded for any payments you’ve already made!

How to Write Your Anthem College Borrower’s Defense Claim

As I just mentioned, you absolutely need to stress the fact that Anthem College broke the law, which is well-documented, and which led to the school’s closing, but you can’t just say “They broke the law, so I deserve a discharge.”

You have to prove that you never would have agreed to take out the student loan to attend Anthem if they hadn’t committed illegal activity against you. In other words, you’ve got to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the school’s lies are the only reason why you thought it’d be a good idea to borrow money to cover the costs of their higher education programs.

Because Anthem College came under the scrutiny of the US Senate, which led to its closing in 2014, it will be relatively easy for you to show that you were misled – as there’s a mountain of evidence from all sorts of people who experienced the very same illegal behavior that you did!. In other words, it’s not like you’re the only one claiming this. You’ve got plenty of company.

But to make a convincing case with the Department of Education, you will need to go into detail about what Anthem’s recruits told you, promised you, etc. Don’t be vague when you write about this illegal behavior either, because the more specific you can be, the more likely you are to receive approval for a discharge.

Before you even load up the Borrower’s Defense Discharge Application, spend a few minutes thinking about what Anthem’s recruiters told you, what they promised you, or what they did that made you think it was a good idea to borrow money via student loans.

Write down your thoughts, and come up with as much specific detail as you can about what happened, because you’ll need to include all this on your application.

Next – let’s look at what’s already been published all over the web to see what other students have complained about Anthem doing. Remember, it’s easier to convince the DOE that you experienced the same thing that everyone else has already reported, so if you remember any of this stuff happening to you, make sure to include it in your BDAR application!

What Fraudulent Activity has Anthem Been Accused Of?

Anthem College has been accused of systematically misleading prospective students about the quality of their degree programs and other higher education offers.

This included telling students that credits earned at Anthem would be transferable to other schools and that students would be able to find a decent job upon graduation, and not just any job, but a job that was in their field of study.

Anthem has also been accused of targeting vulnerable students suffering from low self-esteem, and students who lacked a strong support network, basically, specifically targeting people they knew they could convince to borrow money for their low-quality education programs, by promising them all sorts of lies.

Remember, when you write your Borrower’s Defense application it’s important to stress the fact that Anthem College targeted you personally. It is not enough to simply point out that Anthem has been accused of fraud. You need to prove that you were a direct victim of Anthem’s fraudulent marketing activities,

Let’s take a closer look at what Anthem College did that caused it to come under scrutiny of the United States Senate.

Anthem’s Proven Illegal Marketing Activities

Remember that everything I list here was documented in the US Senate’s officially investigation into Anthem College, so this is the stuff that you’ll really want to hammer home on your BDAR application – if you experienced any of it directly.

And that’s an important point, because you need to remeber that the BDAR process is a legal process where you’re basically under oath to tell the truth, and that there could be legal repercussions for lying, even exaggerating.

What I mean by that is this: do not lie, make anything up, or exaggerate any claims on your BDAR application! If you are caught doing this, you will absolutely face legal and/or financial consequences, and the kinds of things that you definitely don’t want to experience.

With that said, here’s what the US Senate investigation reported Anthem had done wrong:

• Lying to prospective students about the quality of an Anthem College degree
• Lying to students about the transferability of Anthem College credits. Students who tried to transfer credits from Anthem College found out that no school would accept them.
• Lying to students about their employment prospects upon graduation from Anthem College. For example, Anthem told one student that she would be able to work as a radiological technician upon graduation even though the program was not accredited and would not qualify the graduate to work in the field.

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, these are the sorts of claims that you’ll want to include on your BDAR application, but remember that you’ll need to go into as much detail as possible about what was said, promised, etc.

If you can document any of the things that were stated, that’s your best bet at getting a BDAR discharge approval. Look for emails, text messages, letters or any other forms of written communications where the school told you something that it should not have, and if you can find any of that sort of stuff, you’re in a great spot and highly likely to get your BDAR discharge request approved.

Where Can I File My Borrower’s Defense Claim?

The only place you should apply for the Borrower’s Defense claim is the official US government website for the program.

Do not apply anywhere else, no matter what someone promises you. There are scammers out there who will promise you that they can fast-track your application,, ensure it’ll be approved, etc. etc., and all for a low cost, but you need to be aware that many of these people are just trying to steal your personal information so they can perform identity theft.

Please be careful when looking for assistance with the Borrower’s Defense process!

Checking The Status of My BDAR Application

After you file your Borrower’s Defense claim, keep in mind that it may take quite some time before you receive any news about it.

I’ve heard stories about people who waited over a year (or more) before they heard anything from the Department of Education, and this is becoming more and more common as Betsy DeVos continues to wage war against the average American, while defending the corrupt for-profit schools and student loan servicing companies who lobbied President Trump to appoint her as DOE Secretary.

Whatever you do, don’t let the prospect of a long wait keep you from applying to the BDAR discharge program, because even though DeVos is fighting tooth and claw to stop these sorts of benefits from being distributed, she hasn’t been successful yet, and you still have a great shot at getting your loans forgiven if you experienced any illegal activity from Anthem.

The sooner you get your application in, the better, as there’s truly no telling how long this program will be around, or whether or not it’ll get wiped out with Betsy DeVos’s next memo, or President Trump’s Student Loan Debt Plans.

Discharging Anthem College Loans via the Closed School Loan Discharge Program

As I mentioned earlier, there are two ways that former students of Anthem College can achieve loan forgiveness.

If you don’t feel that Anthem College defrauded you in any way, and thus don’t want to file a BDAR application, then the good news is that you do have another options: the Closed School Loan Discharge Program.

The Closed School Loan Discharge program is for students who were studying at a school and who weren’t able to complete their education programs before the school closed.

One great thing about the Closed School Discharge Program is that you could have even already withdrawn from Anthem before they shut, and that as long as you were an active student within 120 days from the date that they closed, you’ll still be eligible for the discount.

Anthem officially shut their doors in 2014, so if you were attending the college around that time, then you definitely want to look at the details of the Closed School Loan Discharge Program below.

Eligibility Requirements for Anthem College Closed School Discharges

I have an entire page on this site devoted to the Closed School Loan Discharge Program, where I go through the entire process in detail, and which you should check out if you think you qualify for the discharge.

For the purposes of this post, I’m just going to quickly summarize how closed school discharges work so you can determine if you may have a chance at getting an approval.

There are three essential conditions that you’ll need to satisfy in order to qualify for a closed school discharge, including:

1. You must have been studying at Anthem College during the time it closed or you must have left the school no more than 120 days before it closed
2. You cannot be currently attending another school after having transferred credits from Anthem College
3. You cannot have completed all the credits required for graduation from the degree program that you were pursuing

If you can satisfy these three requirements then there’s a very good chance that you can use the Closed School Loan Discharge program to get your student loan discharged.

How Do I Apply for a Closed School Discharge?

Applying for the program is easy.

Simply download the official form from the US Government website, fill it out, and submit it to your loan servicer. Your loan servicer is the company that receives your monthly loan payments.

Every loan servicer has a slightly different procedure regarding how they process these applications, so I can’t tell you how things will go after you submit the paperwork, but your loan servicer will tell you what you need to do.

Which Program is Better? Borrower’s Defense or Closed School Discharges?

They’re both good programs in that they can get your student loan discharged, and each of them can provide refunds as well, but you really do want to pick one program or the other, and apply to that one only.

Assuming that you qualify for both programs, I would go with the Closed School Loan Discharge program simply because the applications for the Borrower’s Defense program are taking so long to process.

However, ultimately the choice is yours. Read through the requirements for each program and then decide for yourself.

Will I Owe Taxes on Forgiven Debt?

Yes, you will need to pay taxes on whatever amount of money you end up getting forgiven.

The IRS considers forgiven student loan debt as taxable income and they will want you to pay the money that you owe them all at once too, in a big, single, lump-sum payment.

For details on how this process works, be sure to check out my page on Student Loan Forgiveness and Taxable Income Laws.

But to summarize the way it’ll go, let’s assume that you get $100,000 worth of student loan debt discharged via one of the two programs mentioned here.

You will then need to pay taxes on the amount of money that was forgiven, at your nomal rate, so if you normally paid 30% for income taxes, then you’d need to pay $30,000 to the IRS.

Because almost nobody struggling with student loan debt is going to have $30,000 laying around, this going to create a massive problem for most people.

I’m labbeling it the “Student Loan Taxpocalypse” and because I know how bad things will get, I’ve set up a new website called Forget Tax Debt to help people figure out how to deal with their IRS debt.

For information on getting rid of your IRS tax debt, visit my site Forget Tax Debt, or check out some specific pages like Filing & Paying IRS Back Taxes, IRS Tax Debt Settlements, The IRS Fresh Start Program, and IRS Tax Debt Forgiveness.

Where Else Can I Ask Questions?

For questions about other issues related to student loans, make sure to check out other pages of my site where I explain both Private and Federal loan assistance programs in detail.

For Federal Student Loan Relief, check out my pages about Federal Student Loan Forgiveness, Federal Student Loan Bankruptcy Discharges, Federal Student Loan Delinquency Help, Federal Student Loan Rehabilitation, and Federal Student Loan Wage Garnishments.

And if you need Private Student Loan Relief, make sure to look at my pages on Private Student Loan Forgiveness, Private Student Loan Consolidation Options, Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Discharges and Getting Help with Private Student Loan Defaults.

For other questions or concerns about Borrower’s Defense or Closed School Discharges, try visiting the official US Government pages for each program, which you can find here and here.

But before I go, please do remember to be careful about who you trust with your student loans, because there are all sorts of Loan Forgiveness Scams floating around these days, run by people looking to steal your personal information!

If you have any other questions that you can’t find answers too, please feel free to post them in the Comments section below and I’ll do my best to get you a response as quickly as possible.

Disclaimer:Information obtained from Forget Student Loan Debt is for educational purposes only. You should consult a licensed financial professional before making any financial decisions. This site receives some compensation through affiliate relationships. This site is not endorsed or affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education.