Ex-students refusing to pay their loans have a bone to pick with the Education Department

Former students of the now-defunct for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges managed to get a meeting with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Department of Education (ED) on Monday.

But the group of students known as the Corinthian 100 abruptly canceled that meeting because the ED doesn't want to cancel their student debt en masse.

The Corinthian 100 have been fighting for a wholesale discharge of student loans for all current and former students Corinthian Colleges, which announced last week that it was shutting its doors. They believe a class-wide discharge of the debt is the only way for the ED to take responsibility for "aiding and abetting" the allegedly predatory and scam-like practices of Corinthian.

It's true that Corinthian's closure means students enrolled at the schools are eligible for a full discharge of their loans, granted they forego the option to transfer their credits to another college and start their education all over again.

But the ED said former members of Corinthian Colleges will have to individually make their case for loan discharge. The decision made the Corinthian 100 so outraged that they canceled the meeting.

"The Department plans to use the occasion of the meeting to announce a heartless and wasteful individualized review process that would require defrauded students to jump through hoops to receive debt relief," the group said in a statement to the press on Monday.

The Corinthian 100 say they will be happy to reschedule the meeting once the individualized review process for student loan discharge is removed as an option.

"All Corinthian student debtors deserve justice," Paul Hicks a member of the group said. "We demand a full discharge for all. It's insulting to watch this so-called 'regulatory body' publicize that it cares about us while allowing the entities they are truly aligned with to bleed us dry."