For years it’s been hanging over the heads of TSU administrators, some 40-million dollars in debt owed to the Department of Education. The money comes from federal student loans. Universities are only allowed to have a certain percentage of defaults, which they call the error rate. Anything above that and the university has to pay it back.
This is TSU President John Rudley:
“We had a three percent error and you gave say two-hundred and fifty-million dollar worth of total financial aid. The used the error rate to calculate the error rate dollarized and said that’s what you should should pay the department back. So it’s always been a statistical sampling — that’s how they came up with a larger number.” 
TSU always disagreed with department of education auditors on the number of faulty loans the university administered. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee kept negotiating over the years and it wasn’t until the Obama administration took over that talks heated up. Now the entire debt has been wiped away.
Congresswoman Jackson Lee:
“With all of the T’s crossed and I’s dotted, and the ethics in place we have determined that this matter is settled and Texas Southern University owes the Federal government NO MORE MONEY. NO MORE MONEY.”
With the debt behind them, President Rudley says they’ll now be able to concentrate on improving the education of their students.
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