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, […]

It has been one year since student loan borrowers have been theoretically eligible to have their loans forgiven under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. And yet, out of the 28,000 borrowers who applied, only 96 have had their loans forgiven. That is less than 1 percent of applicants. That number is shocking and […]

For student loan borrowers struggling to repay their loans, income-driven repayment plans are a lifeline that helps millions of people stay out of default. There are several income-driven repayment plans: Pay As You Earn – PAYE, Revised Pay As You Earn – REPAYE, Income-Based Repayment – IBR, Income-Contingent Repayment – ICR.  These programs let borrowers […]

Student loan borrowers who apply to have their loans canceled due to their disability or the death of their child can worry about one less thing: possible tax consequences. When a borrower dies or becomes permanently disabled before paying off student loans, the loans can be discharged, relieving the disabled borrower or surviving family members […]

Defaulted student loan borrowers planning to file their taxes should know that any refund they were expecting will likely wind up at the Department of Education (ED) instead of their bank account. Tax refund offsets are one of the powerful tools the government uses to collect defaulted federal student loans. For many struggling student loan borrowers, […]

With nearly a quarter of federal student loan borrowers in default, borrowers need a system that will help them to successfully repay their loans. Unfortunately, the Department of Education continues to reward contractors that lie to borrowers and to incentivize programs that set borrowers up for failure. InsideARM reports that over the weekend, the Department […]

Many of the 44 million borrowers are struggling to repay their more than $1.4 trillion in student loan debt in the United States. The options for federal student loan borrowers can be good, but as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s many reports and recent lawsuit against Navient demonstrate, accessing those options can be a confusing […]

According to Politico, late Monday night, the Department of Education told a federal appeals court that a court order blocking its ability to send any newly defaulted student loan borrowers to its hired debt collectors has cost taxpayers more than $5 million in lost collections since March. This lawsuit came about because private debt collection […]

Earlier this week, over 150 Members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos highlighting concerns surrounding the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED’s) decision to make changes to the student loan servicing contract procurement process. A month after withdrawing guidance intending to ensure greater consumer protections in the contracting process for student […]