"Corinthian 15" Launch First Student Debt Strike in U.S. History

Fifteen former students of Corinthian Colleges launched the first student debt strike in U.S. history on February 23, 2015, refusing to repay federal loans for what they characterized as fraudulent education that left them deeper in poverty with worthless degrees. Organized by the Debt Collective, the “Corinthian 15” demanded the Department of Education use “defense to repayment” provisions to cancel all debt for students defrauded by Corinthian’s Everest, WyoTech, and Heald College campuses.

The strikers—disproportionately low-income, minority, and female borrowers—shared stories of predatory recruitment, falsified job placement rates inflated by up to 80%, and crushing debt loads of $30,000 to $75,000 for certificates and degrees that employers refused to recognize. Many were worse off than before enrollment: unable to find work in their fields, defaulting on loans, facing wage garnishment and tax refund seizures, all while trapped in non-dischargeable debt thanks to the 2005 Bankruptcy Act.

The strike exposed the fundamental injustice of student debt: Corinthian Colleges defrauded students with federal complicity (the company received $1.4 billion annually in federal aid), executives extracted millions in compensation, the company filed for bankruptcy protection to shield remaining assets, yet students remained personally liable for debt incurred through fraud. The 2005 bankruptcy law meant students couldn’t discharge educational debt even when the education was fraudulent and the institution bankrupt, while Corinthian strategically used Chapter 11 to restructure.

The Corinthian 15 rapidly grew to over 100 strikers (the “Corinthian 100”), attracting national media attention and putting pressure on Education Secretary Arne Duncan to provide debt relief. The strikers rejected individual, case-by-case review, demanding systemic relief acknowledging that Corinthian’s fraud was institutional, not individual. They argued that if Wall Street banks received bailouts after fraud, students defrauded by predatory colleges deserved debt cancellation.

The debt strike represented a radical challenge to the student debt system: if debt from fraudulent institutions could not be discharged in bankruptcy, and if government enabled the fraud through lending, then collective refusal to pay became a form of civil disobedience. The strike foreshadowed broader debt cancellation movements and forced the Obama administration to create borrower defense to repayment processes—which Betsy DeVos would later freeze and dismantle after 2017. The Corinthian strikers proved that collective action could challenge a system designed to make student debt inescapable.