The National Consumer Law Center’s annual conference wrapped up this weekend.  We were honored to have a number of top federal student aid regulators at our conference this year.  We wrote about Treasury Deputy Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin’s speech in a separate post.  We were also honored to hear from Department of Education Deputy Under […]

The National Consumer Law Center had the honor yesterday of hearing U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin speak about the critical importance of student loan servicing and collection.  Specifically, Deputy Secretary Raskin stated: “From our experience in the mortgage market, we know the importance of servicers informing borrowers and guiding them through the process […]

Since we wrote our report on the student loan “debt relief” industry in 2013, we have unfortunately seen this industry grow and engage in even more abusive practices. We summarized our concerns in this presentation that Deanne Loonin gave by skype to the Association for Student Loan Relief’s Las Vegas conference this past week. In this […]

Last month, the Department of Education announced new contract terms for its largest student loan servicers.  The Department made some important changes, but much more needs to be done. As Ben Miller of New America summarized, the changes address only the finances, not the structure of student loan servicing.  We agree that financial incentives matter […]

We wrote in our March 2014 report about the critical importance of giving students more than one chance to succeed in college.  The reality is that most students do not follow a straight line from high school to a four-year college to graduation.  Many stumble along the way.   Yet federal aid policies and practices hammer […]

Senator Harkin released draft proposals for Higher Education Act reauthorization in June.   As part of this process, Senator Harkin created an email address to receive feedback by August 29.  This was intended to facilitate the submisssion of feedback and suggestions from “interested stakeholders.” Over the next month or so, we will be highlighting ideas […]

We wrote an open letter last year to private student lenders urging them to stop making excuses and start helping borrowers.   Unfortunately, not much has changed. There have been improvements for newer borrowers. Most new private loan products are better, but let’s not get carried away congratulating the lenders.  The predatory loans they made […]

We issued a policy brief in June on student loan servicing.  We urged the Department of Education not to renew the current servicing contracts.  We said that borrowers and taxpayers deserve better than five more years of the same old system.  We are sorry to report that the Department went ahead and renewed the contracts. […]

We wrote earlier about a number of important changes to the federal student loan program. It took a long time, but it’s now almost July 1, the date when the new rules become effective. There are a number of important changes, including very significant improvements to the loan rehabilitation program. These new rehabilitation rules are […]

President Obama announced new executive actions last week to address rising student loan debt burdens. The proposed changes to income-based repayment received the most attention.   The current Pay As You Earn plan has the most favorable terms for borrowers, but is only available to new borrowers (meaning borrowers taking out loans as of July […]