Introduction to Panel on: Can Bankruptcy Give Higher Education a Fresh Start?

• Published in: The American bankruptcy law journal Vol. 92; no. 2; pp. 225 - 231
• Main Author: Gross, Karen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ft. Wayne National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges 01-04-2018
• Subjects: Accreditation; Bankruptcy laws; Colleges & universities; Consumers; Educational leadership; Higher education; Insolvency; Leadership; Neurosciences; Sex crimes; State budgets; Student loans; Tax Cuts & Jobs Act 2017-US; Taxation; Tenure; United States > US
• ISSN: 0027-9048

In conjunction with the National Bankruptcy Conference in October 2017, the American Bankruptcy Law Journal and the American Bar Association co-sponsored a panel on how higher education can benefit from Title 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (the "Bankruptcy Laws" or "Title 11"). Let me be abundantly clear as to what this panel and the accompanying articles are not about; collectively, they are not about how to interpret existing bankruptcy law provisions for students or graduates who seek relief and the myriad of issues raised by their filings, including the possibility of discharge of their student loans which are, for some, an extraordinary fiscal and emotional burden - a topic well covered in the public media.2 How we deal with outsized loans and repayment is a topic for another day, although I for one have been deeply troubled by the disjuncture between front-end borrowing and back-end repayment.3 There are many reasons why the topic of institutions of higher learning seeking bankruptcy relief (or its conceptual benefits) is and should be of interest to a wide audience including: colleges and universities, many of which are, sadly, in the eyes of many, struggling fiscally with their continued viability at risk; the Boards of Trustees of colleges and universities trying to guide the institutions they see operating in an environment fraught with pitfalls; students struggling to both borrow and repay the monies needed to afford the seemingly steep price of education; faculty who worry not only about institutional stability and their own program and tenure status; lawyers who represent institutions (in house and externally); and the public, which looks to colleges and universities of all sorts to educate the next generation of individuals who will become participants in our workplaces, members of our community and leaders in our government.4 The plight of colleges and universities has been well publicized and the media has not shied away from writing about the problems educational institutions have encountered at a range of levels: fiscal instability; poor leadership behavior; increased protests on any number of topics including from more conservative voices; athletic scandals; sexual assault claims involving faculty, staff and even administrators; changes in building names and removal of statues; dealing with a past history of slavery. For some recent articles on these changes, recognizing that uncertainty still exists, see Eric Kelderman & Adam Harris, Final Tax Bill Would Spare Some Higher-Ed Worries, but Could Lead to State Budget Cuts, The Chronicle of Higher Education (Dec. 15, 2017), https://www.chronicle.com/article/Final-Tax-Bill-Would-Spare/242075; J. Barclay Collins et alJust-Passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Will Significantly Impact Higher Education, Nat. 12 See Alexandra Hegji, An Overview of Accreditation of Higher Education in the United States, Congressional Research Service (Mar. 23, 2017), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43826.pdf; Karen Gross, Accreditation: We Have Run Amo\, Linkedln Pulse (Feb. 26, 2016), https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ accreditation-we-have-run-amok-karen-gross/. 13 See A Looll at the Shocking Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2018, Student Loan Hero (Jan. 24, 2018), https://studentloanhero.com/student'loan-debt-statistics/; see also Karen Gross, Student Loans I: