Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB”) Student Loan Ombudsman released its midyear report analyzing complaints submitted directly by consumers about their student loans. Importantly, the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman announced that it is now officially accepting complaints about federal student loans. Although it has actually been accepting federal student loan complaints for a […]

Yesterday, NCLC and 39 others sent a letter to Secretary John King demanding that the Department of Education look at its loan data to determine the impact that student loan defaults have on student loan borrowers of color. In our letter, we asked the Department to collect and release the data necessary to ensure that […]

On a quiet Friday afternoon, just prior to the Fourth of July weekend, the U.S. Treasury Department released the first report on its student loan debt collection pilot program. Treasury launched this pilot program last year with the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to learn more about the way the government collects on defaulted student […]

Credit reporting is a confusing topic for all types of debt, but it is especially confusing for student loans.  This is largely because there are so many different types of student loans and they are governed by so many different rules.  For example, there are multiple types of federal student loans, as well as private […]

It has been one month since tax season came to an end. By now, many student loan borrowers have learned the hard way that the federal government will take their tax refund, including Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC), if they are in default on a federal loan.  A couple of months ago, we shared a […]

Student loan borrowers should be aware of a proposed rule by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued on May 6, 2016.  It implements a new law that allows robocalls and texts to be made to a cell phone without the consumer’s consent “to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States.” This […]

Last week was full of announcements about student loans. The U.S. Department of Education (ED), along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Department of Treasury, announced last week that it plans to take steps to improve consumer protections and enhance the student loan borrower experience. ED’s announcement focused on four areas: helping […]

Today the National Consumer Law Center and the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education seeking the release of student loan debt collection information and race data.  We sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in May 2015, requesting that the Department release documents both about its debt collection policies […]

Today the Department of Education’s Special Master, Joseph A. Smith, released his long awaited third report on the status of providing relief to defrauded federal student loan borrowers.  While we are encouraged to see that the Department has approved slightly over 2,000 borrowers for discharge of their student loans based on misrepresentations about job placement […]

The numbers are in and the results are depressing. No, I’m not talking about Super Tuesday. You may have noticed, at the bottom of our home page, we survey student loan borrowers.  The last survey ended on February 29 and produced the mostly stark results we have seen thus far. We asked people who have […]