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DOJ Settles with For-Profit Education Company Over Alleged FCA Violations

Student Lending DOJ Enforcement Department of Education False Claims Act / FIRREA

Consumer Finance

On November 16, the DOJ announced a $95.5 million settlement with the country’s second-largest for-profit education company to resolve alleged federal and state violations of the False Claims Act (FCA). According to the DOJ’s complaint, the company’s admissions personnel received payment based on the number of students they enrolled, a violation of Title IV of the Higher Education Act’s (HEA) Incentive Compensation Ban (ICB) and the Regulatory Safe Harbor. The DOJ alleges that the company misrepresented its compliance with Title IV of the HEA to the Department of Education by certifying in Program Participation Agreements that it had not “paid to any persons or entities any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment based directly or indirectly on success in securing enrollments, financial aid to students, or student retention.” The Department of Education calculated that, from July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2011, the company, having submitted “a variety of claims to the government for Title IV funding that it [knew] to be false based upon its non-compliance” with the ICB, received more than $11 billion in government funding. Under the terms of the settlement, the $95.5 million will be divided among the United States, the co-plaintiff states, and the whistleblowers and their counsel in the FCA cases filed separately in federal court in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Nashville, Tennessee.