The government shut down has lasted over a week now.  This is having a big impact on higher education.  However, at least for now,  the Department of Education says that there should be minimal impact on schools, lenders and guaranty agency’s ability to administer the federal aid programs. Most of the Department of Education employees are […]

Thanks to so many of you for responding to the new polling feature on our home page.  Your responses reveal some interesting and often surprising results. In the first poll from this summer, we asked if you were having trouble with just federal student loans, just private loans, or both.  About one-third of the approximately 300 borrowers […]

PLUS loans are the only federal student loans that come with some “creditworthiness” requirements.  Basically, the government will deny an application if the parent is considered delinquent for 90 days or more on the repayment of a debt or has been the subject of a default determination, bankruptcy discharge, foreclosure, repossession, tax lien, wage garnishment, […]

For the past few months, the student loan policy debate has centered almost exclusively on interest rates.  That debate should be over, at least for now.  President Obama signed a law today that makes a number of important changes to interest rates for new federal student loan borrowers.  The bill ties federal student loan rates […]

We changed the look and expanded the Student Loan Borrower Assistance web site this week.  We hope you find it easier to use. As of July 1, there are a number of important changes to the federal student loan regulations.  The final rules were published in November 2012, but did not go into effect until […]

In response to the report we released on student loan debt relief last week, some companies have responded by saying that they are comparable to organizations that help taxpayers file their returns–something customers can also do for free. This is a lousy excuse to rip people off.  Here are a few reasons why: Most student loan debt […]

NCLC released a new report today, Searching for Relief:  Desperate Borrowers and the Growing Student Loan Debt Relief Industry.   This industry has sprung up in response to the demand for student loan borrower assistance and this report documents multiple problems as well as potential violations of consumer federal and state laws. Given the many misrepresentations […]

While the debate about student loan interest rates attracts most of the buzz these days, student loan debt collectors continue to fly under the radar.  It is particularly difficult to get to the bottom of the collections issue because we know so little about how these debt collectors get paid and how much they are profiting […]

In discussing the company’s lending to “non-traditional” students, Sallie Mae CEO Al Lord said in a June 5, 2008 interview that “[i]t was obviously a mistake and I’m not going to step away from responsibility because I was either chairman or CEO when those loans were made. We got a little too confident in our own view […]

With more than 850,000 private student loans currently in default and thousands of other borrowers struggling to make their payments, attorneys at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) are urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and policymakers to help borrowers struggling to keep up with their private student loan payments. NCLC attorneys submitted comments in response to […]