Ted Mitchell, Education Department undersecretary, said the department is bound by statute and regulation on how it handles such a case when a student's school closes.
"You can have the credits you paid for or you can relinquish the credits if you want the money back .... Students can have one or the other, but not both," Mitchell told The Associated Press.
Corinthian, a large chain of for-profit colleges that nearly collapsed last summer amid fraud allegations, shuttered its 28 remaining ground campuses this week, about two weeks after the Education Department announced it was fining it $30 million for misrepresentation.