You might think that struggling student loan borrowers face enough stress and pain from the government’s extreme student loan collection powers. This is sadly not the case. Many states have compounded borrowers’ pain by suspending or revoking professional licenses of borrowers in default on student loans. Even that is not enough. Schools often pile on […]

Since you must work for 10 years in a qualifying job to get public service loan forgiveness and the program only started in late 2007, borrowers have only recently become eligible for relief. Unfortunately, so far, more than 99 out of every 100 public service workers who applied for loan forgiveness were rejected. Among other […]

Guest Post by Deanne Loonin (Attorney and advocate for low-income student loan borrowers) Programs to help struggling student loan borrowers will only succeed if servicers effectively do their jobs and provide high quality information and assistance. Servicers are a borrower’s primary point of contact.  Ideally, they should provide borrowers with accurate and comprehensive information about […]

We have been calling on the government for years to stop offsetting Social Security benefits of disabled student loan borrowers.  Recipients of Social Security Disability (SSDI) payments generally qualify for disability discharges.  Yet most do not know about the discharge program and do not know that applying for a discharge stops offsets and cancels loans. As part […]

It has been busy lately in the student loan servicing arena.  State and federal regulators have begun to wake up to the rampant problems caused by sloppy, inaccurate, and incompetent servicers and the heavy costs for borrowers.  We have been writing about these issues for some time. The stakes are high.  Student loan servicers are […]

We wrote in a previous post about our coalition letter to the Department of Education’s “Special Master”, urging him to create a fair and accessible “defense to repayment” process for borrowers.  While the special master Joseph Smith works on this project, the Department also announced that it will be holding hearings and creating a negotiated […]

United States Senators Blumenthal, Murray and Warren sent a letter to the Department of Education in May requesting information about the Department’s reviews of servicers’ compliance with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA).  In announcing the review last year, Secretary of Education Duncan said that every option would be on the table with regard to […]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) asked for comments on student loan servicing a few months ago.  Thousands of borrowers and their advocates responded before yesterday’s deadline, highlighting again and again that the current system does not work well for borrowers and is not created to ensure that borrowers have enforceable rights to quality service […]

The Obama Administration announced a number of relief options for borrowers this week, including new ways to help disabled borrowers.  This has been overshadowed by other news on student loans this week, but it is criticially important.  We have been calling on the Administration for some time to stop collecting from Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) […]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has launched a public inquiry into student loan servicing practices.  The issues that the Bureau is seeking information on include: industry practices that create repayment challenges, hurdles for distressed borrowers, and the economic incentives that may affect the quality of service. The CFPB is also re-launching an enhanced version […]