The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing this past week examining mismanagement in the federal student loan rehabilitation process.  The hearing coincided with a damning report from the General Accountability Office (GAO), Better Oversight Could Improve Defaulted Loan Rehabilitation.  Department of Education Inspector General Kathleen Tighe testified at the hearing about […]

Lack of financial resources and the growing costs of college have a clear impact on college success rates, yet there are social trends at work that also provide significant challenges.  Our new report addresses the root causes of poverty and social isolation while also presenting practical ideas to help low-income students succeed. The ideas are from […]

The Department of Education issued final regulations on November 1, 2013 making significant changes to a number of key student loan programs.  Many of the most important changes affect the loan rehabilitation program that borrowers may use to get out of default on federal student loans. The regulations are effective July 1, 2014 and apply […]

 The Student Loan Default Trap: Why Borrowers Default and What Can Be Done,  a new report released on Monday from the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, addresses questions about the causes of default and the effectiveness of programs intended to assist borrowers in default. Highlights include: A summary of existing research […]

The Department of Education posted a new web site for borrowers in default.  It is intended to be a central point of entry for borrowers in default with information about consequences of default and on-line access to account information. The new site allows borrowers to request collection hearings on-line.  This includes garnishment and offset hearings. […]

We have written a number of posts about ongoing operational problems at the Department of Education.  We received some encouraging news this week that some of these problems may be fixed, including: 1.  We wrote earlier about problems with borrowers seeking to consolidate out of default.  The Department was placing borrowers in ICR even if they […]

We wrote in December about operational breakdowns at the Department of Education, focusing on the Department’s failure to properly place borrowers in “forced consolidation” into IBR.  Shockingly, the Department has yet to fix this problem.  Department staff now tell us it will be resolved some time in 2012, hopefully by May. The response has been […]

A December 2011 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education reveals numerous problems with the Department of Education’s online system for managing student loans. Unfortunately, this is not news to our clients and other borrowers. We have been pointing out operational breakdowns for years, including the Department’s failure to place borrowers coming out of default through […]

We previously wrote about our efforts to persuade the Department of Education to resolve a number of problems with policies and programs for financially distressed student loan borrowers.  Unfortunately, not much has changed since we last wrote.  A quick summary: Ensure that Borrowers Consolidating as a Way out of Default Can Select IBR The Department […]

We wrote a while ago about a new law that was supposed to unclog the loan rehabilitation logjam.  Since then, the market has rebounded and according to guaranty agencies, there are now buyers for most rehabilitated loans.  However, we are finding that borrowers that are only able to make relatively low “reasonable and affordable” payments are all […]