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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

We thought last year was a busy year in the student loan world (and it was) but this year was even busier.  As The Institute for College Access and Success  (TICAS)  and others have reported, student debt burdens continue to increase.  The Obama Administration announced a commitment this year to expand options for borrowers and to […]

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 […]

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 […]

We wrote earlier about potential problems with the Department of Education’s new “servicer choice” consolidation application system.  At that point, most, but not all borrowers were required to use the new system in order to consolidate with the Direct Loan program.  The Department continues to plow ahead, announcing last week that they implemented the second […]

Comments on the Department of Education’s proposed “gainful employment” regulation are due next Tuesday May 27.   This is the Department’s second attempt to define what it means for career education programs at public, nonprofit and for-profit colleges to prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.  According to the Department of Education, a […]