Washington (CNN) It's been five months since a federal court ordered Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to give defrauded student loan borrowers relief, but more than 100,000 people are still waiting to hear whether their debt will be canceled.

The Obama-era rule, known as Borrower Defense to Repayment, allows students who believe they were defrauded by their college to apply for loan forgiveness. The idea is that if they didn't get the education they were promised, they shouldn't have to pay back their debt.

The number of these applications soared as the Obama administration cracked down on for-profit colleges. Sometimes nursing students , for example, found out after finishing their program that it didn't have the right accreditation -- keeping them from getting a job.

As of last fall, more than 200,000 people had applied for loan forgiveness, a majority of whom went to for-profit colleges. Nearly 48,000 received debt relief and 9,000 have been denied.

But no applications were processed between June and September of last year, the most recent data available, as the administration fought implementing the rule. But they continued to pile up. The department received an additional 35,000 claims during that time period.

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