A student who enrolls at Hondros College of Nursing (“College”) agrees, as a condition of enrollment, to resolve any legal disputes with the College through arbitration. Specifically, the student and College enter into a “pre-dispute arbitration agreement” which means that the student and the College are agreeing to resolve through arbitration any disputes that may arise in the future between the student and the College. Because arbitration is a way to resolve a dispute without filing a lawsuit and going to court, both the College and the student waive any rights to jury trial as part of the pre-dispute arbitration agreement. As an additional condition of enrollment, students agree to waive their right to bring their claims together through a class action lawsuit or class arbitration against the College. These conditions of enrollment apply to all students and all of their legal claims, regardless of whether the student receives financial assistance or loans from the U.S. Department of Education (“ED”). An arbitrator’s decision and any award are final and binding on the student and the College.
ED requires the following disclosures related to how the above pre-dispute arbitration agreements and class action waivers affect students who receive federal student aid, including students who obtain Federal Direct Loan Program loans. With respect to such students:
- The College cannot require the student borrower to participate in arbitration or any other internal dispute resolution process prior to filing a borrower defense to repayment claim with ED. Student borrowers may file borrower defense to repayment claims at any time.
- The College cannot require students to limit, relinquish, or waive their ability to pursue filing a borrower defense claim at any time.
- All arbitration proceedings conducted under any pre-dispute arbitration agreement toll the limitations period for filing a borrower defense to repayment claim with ED. Students going through arbitration therefore will receive an extension on their deadline to file a borrower defense claim with ED.
Descriptions of the arbitration process are provided in the College’s enrollment agreement. As noted in the enrollment agreement, if any of the provisions of the dispute resolution section of the enrollment agreement conflict with the applicable law of the jurisdiction in which a student is located, then conflicts are resolved in favor of the applicable law of that jurisdiction.