Effective: 07/06/2020
As part of your enrollment at the school, you are being required to sign an arbitration agreement and class action waiver, which are defined as follows:
Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution, is a way to resolve disputes outside the courts. The dispute will be decided by one or more persons (the 'arbitrators', 'arbiters' or 'arbitral tribunal'), which renders the 'arbitration award'. An arbitration award is legally binding on both sides and enforceable in the courts. A pre-dispute arbitration agreement requires a person to obtain relief through arbitration instead of seeking relief through litigation in the courts.
A class action waiver prevents an individual from bringing or participating in a class action. A class action, also known as a class action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member of that group.
In addition, the school cannot require that the borrower participate in arbitration, nor in any internal dispute resolution process, prior to the borrower’s filing of a defense to repayment claim with the U.S. Department of Education under 34 C.F.R. § 685.206(e); the school cannot in any way require that a student limit, waive, or relinquish their ability to pursue filing a borrower defense claim with the U.S. Department of Education under 34 C.F.R. § 685.206(e); and, if any arbitration is ultimately undertaken pursuant to a pre-dispute arbitration agreement, the period of that arbitration tolls the limitations period for filing a borrower defense to repayment application or claim with the U.S. Department of Education under 34 C.F.R. § 685.206(e)(6)(ii).