UPDATE (April 2, 2020): The Department of Education has provided more information about implementation of the CARES Act.  Updates are provided in the text below. **************************** On Friday, March 27th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed and the President signed into law the ‘‘Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act’’ or the ‘‘CARES Act,’’ emergency […]

This past week has been a dizzying array of announcement after announcement related to COVID-19. The world of federal student loans has not been spared from this frantic information overload. Understandably, borrowers are confused about what they should be doing and unfortunately, there are few answers right now. We’ve tried to distill the information for […]

The COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking financial havoc on millions of student loan borrowers.  Debt cancellation is the best way to protect them now and ensure that they recover along with the economy.  Our work has taught us that low-income borrowers and borrowers of color were already struggling with unaffordable student debt and default before getting […]

As concerns continue to grow about the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), policymakers must act to protect those who are most economically vulnerable and to empower them with the financial safety net needed to follow public health precautions.  One area where the federal government should act is in ensuring that the federal student loan […]

By Persis Yu and Seth Frotman Right before the holidays, Montana Legal Services Association, National Consumer Law Center, and the Student Borrower Protection Center filed an amicus brief to support Montanans demanding justice for abuses by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA, a/k/a Fedloan Servicing) — a large, student loan servicing company that deprived these […]

Defaulted student loan borrowers who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and/or the Child Tax Credit (CTC) now have a new glimmer of hope. Late last week, Representative Sylvia Garcia introduced the Stop EITC and CTC Seizures Act which would protect student loan borrowers from having their EITC and CTC seized to repay […]

‘The injustice of the federal government withholding disability benefits for people who it knows are totally and permanently disabled and entitled to debt relief is hard to comprehend.’ by Alex Elson Too often, political blinders thwart commonsense policies that everyone should support. That is why the Trump administration’s decision last month to automatically discharge student […]

About the author: National Consumer Law Center intern Kendra Cobb is a rising third-year law student at Howard University School of Law who is passionate about financial services and economic empowerment. She serves as Vice-President of the Business Law Society and has experience working with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, an estate planning firm, […]

This post originally appeared on https://protectborrowers.org/qualifying-payments/ This year, we’ve seen lawmakers in states across the country demand accountability from the private-sector student loan companies that handle loans for more than 44 million Americans. These breakdowns include lost paperwork and shoddy record-keeping when loans are transferred between companies—a process that has affected more than 10 million student loan […]

Last week, Senator Lamar Alexander, the Chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, proposed a program that would require student loan borrowers to repay their loans through mandatory automatic deductions from their paychecks. Yesterday, the National Consumer Law Center released a policy brief, The Dark Side of Payroll Withholding to Repay Student Loans, […]