About 1,200 borrowers are threatening to use their student loans to make a point.

Graduates from a slew of colleges and universities say they’re prepared to stop paying back their student loans if the Department of Education fails to forgive the debt of borrowers who attended the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges. The Debt Collective, a group organizing Corinthian students and activists, announced the threat Friday. If the borrowers follow through, this group would join the Corinthian strikers, a cohort of nearly 200 former Corinthian students who have vowed not to pay back their loans.

The threat from graduates at other universities to stop paying back their loans is a show of solidarity with Corinthian students, said Laura Hanna, the co-founder of the Debt Collective. If the borrowers end up refusing to pay their loans for long enough, they could end up in default — a status that puts them at risk of wage garnishment, having a damaged credit history as well as other consequences.

“It’s more of a public statement, more of a public outcry, a moral outcry,” Hanna said of the threat to strike.

Corinthian Colleges shut down its remaining campuses and filed for bankruptcy earlier this year amid accusations the company used inflated graduation and job placement rates to lure students to take on high cost loans and earn worthless degrees.

Students who attended Corinthian campuses within 120 days of its shutdown have the option of having their federal loans forgiven through a closed-school discharge, a mechanism that allows for debt relief for students who can’t finish their degrees. However, if those students choose to finish their schooling elsewhere they’re no longer eligible for loan forgiveness.

It’s still unclear whether students who attended Corinthian well before the school closed will have access to some kind of loan forgiveness. The Debt Collective, as well as Senators and states attorneys general have argued that the overwhelming evidence indicating Corinthian’s wrongdoing should make the students eligible for debt relief.

The Department of Education hasn’t made any final decisions about how those students might receive debt relief, Dorie Nolt, a Department of Education spokeswoman, wrote in an email.

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“The Department is committed to making sure students who have been defrauded or whose schools closed, receive every penny of debt relief that they are entitled to,” she wrote, adding that the agency would like to make the process as easy as possible for students.

Debt Collective organizers say they’ve submitted 1,400 defense to repayment claims on behalf of Corinthian borrowers. Defense to repayment is a little-used legal appeal for loan forgiveness on the basis that the borrower attended a school that committed wrongdoing.

The group is also asking the Department to cancel the loans of any student who attended a Corinthian campus without requiring borrowers to prove individually that they were harmed by Corinthian’s alleged wrongdoing. Organizers sent a document with provisions to discharge the debt of all Corinthian students to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Friday, asking for his signature.

The Department of Education didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.