Alums of a disgraced for-profit college chain have spent years trying to cancel their federal student loans. For three years in federal court, the Obama Department of Education told them to keep on paying. Improbably, the Trump administration is poised to say differently. Under a preliminary accord, the federal government would invite tens of thousands of former students, who more than 20 years ago attended beauty and secretarial schools owned by defunct Wilfred American Education Corp., to petition the Education Department to cancel their unpaid debt and receive refunds on past payments, according to four people familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential settlement negotiations. The applications are almost certain to be approved, these people said, and the government would foot the bill. The deal-which is not complete and may change-would resolve a 2014 class-action lawsuit against the Education Department brought by seven former Wilfred students who claimed the feds for decades had been wrongfully collecting on debt that students needn't repay. Federal law allows borrowers to cancel their loans when their schools violate certain rules, and Wilfred routinely flouted the law by falsely certifying that its students were eligible for government loans, according to the complaint. The lawsuit claimed the department knew the loans were eligible to be forgiven, yet it made no effort to inform debtors of this right. If finalized, the settlement would represent one of the largest debt-forgiveness schemes undertaken by the Education Department. That it didn't happen under Obama, who championed student debt relief measures, and instead could happen under Trump, who in November agreed to pay $25 million to settle several lawsuits tied to his own foray into for-profit education, could upend expectations that a Trump-overseen Education Department would favor the interests of for-profit schools over those of allegedly defrauded students. Jim Margolin, a spokesman f